DRACO SINISTER Part One: Bad Dreams ********** ***Prologue (Draco sleeping)*** And again, the same dream: death and blood and terror. He lay in the mud on a battlefield, and all around him were scenes out of nightmare: goblins with sharp swords ran past him, carrying the decapitated heads of wizards in their fists; screaming giants tore men limb from limb with the force of their arms, and scattered the severed parts over the field like ghastly confetti. Everywhere were the screams of the dying and the dead. And blood, so much blood, he was covered in it. A black horse reared up over him, pawing the sky with its hooves. It was riderless, but carried a banner: a silver dragon on a background of black. He covered his face with his arms as the sharp hooves came down--- Draco bolted awake, covered in cold sweat and feeling nauseated. He rolled over in bed and buried his face in his arms. It wasn't the first such nightmare he'd had; they'd been getting more and more frequent since he'd left Hogwarts for Magid training. He sat up in bed, letting the cold moonlight touch his face. If only there was someone he could talk to, could tell... Harry? No. Not Harry. His mother? She was about to go off on holiday with Sirius, this would just worry her. Sirius? He toyed with the idea for a moment. Sirius was usually full of good advice and was hard to upset. But he might tell Narcissa. And then there was Hermione. Draco sat up and reached for his wand, which was on his bedside table. "Lumos," he whispered, and a small light blossomed from the end of it. He could of course have gotten light without the wand, but untrained Magids weren't supposed to perform "wandless" spells, or so he had been told. He picked up a piece of paper and a pen and balanced the paper on his knees, thinking. He wrote her name, Hermione, and then stopped. What if she told Harry? No. She wouldn't do that. But what could he tell her? Hermione, I'm having nightmares, the same dream every night, I don't know why. She'd think he was going mad, and perhaps he was. As his father had told him, there was madness in his family. And considering that his father was now a patient in St. Mungo's Treatment Center for the Criminally Insane, he hadn't been far off. Draco sat there for a long time, staring at the blank piece of paper, unable to think of any words. Finally, he crumpled the paper up into a ball and tossed it out the window. Then he lay awake, staring at the ceiling until dawn. ***** Dear Hermione, Thanks for writing me so soon -- it was great having a letter waiting for me when I arrived, and tell Mrs. Weasley that I appreciate the sweater she sent, even though it's boiling hot here, and the fudge as well, even though Draco ate it without asking. Did I mention that he and I are roommates? We're the only boys from England here for the program, so they stuck us together. I told them I'd rather be in with the guy from Transylvania who doesn't speak any English and won't go out in the sunlight, but it was no go. This school is a lot like Hogwarts, in some ways: it's in a castle, actually a fortress that used to belong to Godric Gryffindor. I guess Godric had a lot of enemies and didn't mind who knew it, there are cannon emplacements everywhere, as well as a moat and some huge cauldrons that he probably been used to pour boiling oil down on enemy forces. So far we've only had one class and nobody's said anything about teaching us how to use our powers, it's just all about control, controlling your emotions so you don't wind up lashing out with your powers and destroying a whole city block...or making it snow blue...but anyway, Draco already knows how to control his emotions, so I don't know what he thinks he'll be accomplishing here. I suppose he just didn't want to hang around the Mansion by himself all summer, it's full of Aurors at the moment anyway. Sirius and Narcissa said he could go on holiday with them in Greece, but I don't think he wanted to do that either. Can't blame him, really, I wouldn't watch to watch them snogging all over the Greek Islands myself. I guess I'll just have to accept the fact that a Draco-free life is probably impossible, especially since we're going to be related soon and we'll have to see each other at weddings and funerals for the rest of our lives. Speaking of which, Narcissa and Sirius set the date for August 15th, so start planning to be there-it'll be the first time I'll have seen you in nearly two months. I can't wait; I miss you all the time. Guess who else is here, teaching? Professor Lupin! I guess it's not that weird, considering that Dumbledore runs this school and he's one of the few Headmasters out there who would give Lupin a job. It's great having him here, though; I'm actually looking forward to classes starting now. The only other person here who you would know is Fleur Delacoeur. Apparently she started manifesting her powers kind of late - she was already eighteen, and she's nineteen now, so this is her first year here. I guess Magid stuff is a lot more common among people with veela ancestry, which explains Draco as well. I hope you're having fun staying at the Burrow while your parents are on holiday. Give my best regards to the Weasleys, and ask Ron if that new broom I got him is working well, it's meant to be a good one. Is Ginny back from France yet? Tell her I said hi. Write me back, soon, I love getting letters from you. All my love, Harry Hermione smiled to herself, folded up Harry's letter, and put it in her pocket to read again later. Ginny looked at her curiously across the table. "So? Any interesting news?" Pigwidgeon, who had been hooting madly all over the room ever since he had successfully delivered Harry's letters, hopped onto Ginny's saucer, sloshing coffee all over the Weasley's clean-scrubbed kitchen table. "Pig, no! Gerroff!" Ron reached out and caught Pigwidgeon in his hand. "No jumping in the coffee, Pig," he said, grinning at the twittering little owl. "Ginny doesn't like it." "Whereas you love owl-flavored coffee," said Ginny, making a face at Ron. Then she turned back to Hermione, who had her chin propped on her hand and was staring dreamily off into space. "What does Harry say, Hermione? Is everything all right?" "Of course it is, he's fine," said Hermione. "And he said to say hi to you." Ginny flushed very slightly. When she was younger, she had had a terrible crush on Harry, and still retained the vestiges of it, although she was nevertheless quite genuinely happy for Hermione. That was the thing about Ginny, thought Hermione, she was such a very nice person that it would be impossible to dislike her, even though she had come back from her year as an exchange student at Beauxbatons speaking perfect French and having developed a refined way of talking and holding herself that made Hermione feel as if she herself were somehow rather...clunky. "Well, tell him hi from me when you write back," said Ginny, and became very interested in cleaning up the coffee Pigwidgeon had spilled. Ron was scanning his own letter from Harry. "He says Fleur's a student there," he said. "I think Bill did tell me something about that, actually. I'd forgotten." "Are she and Bill still together?" Hermione asked. Ron shrugged. "I dunno. They're on, they're off, it's hard to tell. I think they're off at the moment, actually." Hermione scowled. She did not like the idea of an unattached Fleur being anywhere within ten miles of Harry. Or Draco. Although Draco was part veela himself and could probably fight her off better than Harry could. Also, it was none of her business what Draco did, she thought to herself, but really...he could do better than Fleur, she just knew he could. With a mental shrug, she picked up the second letter Pigwidgeon had brought her. It was tied with a black velvet ribbon and her name was written in a slanting, almost-familiar hand. As she read it through, her mouth opened in surprise. "Well, that's odd!" she exclaimed. "What's odd?" asked Ginny. "It's from Viktor Krum," said Hermione. Now Ron looked up as well. "He's in London," said Hermione. "He wants to meet me for coffee at the Leaky Cauldron. He's staying there for a few days. He says he has something important to tell me." "Oh, Harry's going to love that," said Ron, grinning. "Don't be silly, Ron," said Hermione, putting down the letter with a frown. "I haven't even seen Viktor in two years. And last I heard, he had a girlfriend." "Are you sure he doesn't want to meet you so he can tell you he loffs you again?" said Ron teasingly. "Quite sure," said Hermione, still frowning. "Well, I wouldn't mind seeing Viktor...and Ginny, didn't you say you wanted to go shopping in London? We could go together." "Sure," said Ginny, and Ron added quickly, "I have to go to Diagon Alley anyway to get a kit for my new broom. We can all go." "Okay," said Hermione. "Just let me write a quick letter first." She ran upstairs to the spare room she was staying in. Although the Weasleys hadn't moved out of the Burrow when Fred and George's joke shop turned out to be so successful, they had added a number of extra rooms. From the outside, the house now looked more like a lopsided birthday cake than ever. Hermione's room was one of the new ones, and she liked it very much: it was round, with a stained-glass oriole window that depicted a weasel sleeping on a rock in the sun. She sat down at the desk, took out a piece of paper, and started to write Dear Harry... and stopped. She wasn't very good at writing love letters, but she wanted to be a bit more affectionate than "dear". Especially if he was hanging around with Fleur. Couldn't hurt to remind him exactly whose Harry he was. She tried Darling Harry, but that looked stupid. Then she tried Harry, my love, but that was awful, and she scrunched the whole letter up into a ball and threw it on the floor. She tried again, with a new piece of paper, Dearest Harry... Well, that looked all right. She scribbled the rest of the letter quickly, wrote a quick note to Draco, and bolted out of the room, nearly colliding with Ron on the stairs. "Hermione! Slow down!" "Ron, can I borrow Pig?" she said quickly. "I'm sorry I stepped on your toe," she added, as an afterthought. "I just sent Pig off to Fred and George with a letter. But you can borrow my mum's owl. Hey, Hermione, what's that?" "What's what?" "That," said Ron, and put his hand on her neck, where the collar of her shirt ended. It took her a moment to realize that he was fingering the thin gold chain around her throat. "You don't usually wear jewelry." "Oh," she said. "This," and drew out the pendant that hung on the end of the chain. "It's Draco's Epicyclical Charm," she said, a little self-consciously. "He gave it to me." Ron goggled at her. "Isn't that a little weird?" he said. "I mean, what if you dropped it, or forgot it somewhere, or..." "Ron!" Hermione glared at him. "Like I'd ever do that. Anyway, Dumbledore put some charms on it, so it can't be lost or misplaced or damaged. I can't even take it off, and no one else can take it off me except either Dumbledore or Draco himself." "I think you should just have given it to Dumbledore," said Ron, eyeing the Charm with mistrust. "Or Draco should have kept it. Can't he cart his own nasty little lethal object around with him?" "I tried to give it to Dumbledore. But he said it was Draco's to do what he wanted with. And I don't think Draco wanted to keep it, it probably reminds him of horrid things, like his dad." She shuddered. Ron took his hand off her neck and started to walk down the stairs. "Have I told you lately how extremely glad I am that you didn't end up dating Malfoy?" "Only about six zillion times," said Hermione, following him. "Honestly, I think you're gladder than Harry is." "I have my reasons," said Ron, and before Hermione could ask him to elaborate, he was yelling for Ginny to hurry up and bring the Floo Powder because it was time for them to get going. *** The brown barn owl swooped in through an open window and landed, hooting, on the table next to Harry, who was sitting in the Students' Hall, eating lunch. It had two letters tied to its left leg, both rolled into neat little tubes and fastened with different-colored ribbons. Harry glanced up and across the table at Draco, who was deep in conversation with Fleur Delacoeur. "Letters, Malfoy," he said. Draco looked up and grinned. "Toss me mine," he said. Harry unfastened one of the letters and threw it to Draco. Both of them knew who the letters were from; that went without saying. Hermione was an eminently fair girl. When she wrote, she always wrote to both of them, one letter for Harry, one for Draco. Harry's letter would be tied with a red ribbon, Draco's with silver. Harry occasionally wished that she would send him maybe two letters for every one she sent Draco, just to make a point, but that wasn't in Hermione's nature to do. She was a scrupulous sort of person. Harry watched Draco open his letter, read it, and stick it in his pocket, all without changing expression. Harry would have given a sackful of galleons to see what was in that letter, but he would rather have died than admit it. After all, he trusted Hermione. She was his girlfriend. She loved him. Right? Fleur looked from Harry to Draco with bright blue eyes. Harry knew she was probably nearly as interested as he was in seeing what Hermione had written to Draco. She had attached herself to Draco the first day they had arrived at school. Spotting him standing next to Harry, she had swooped over to them, crying, ""Ello, 'Arry! Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" Harry had made the introductions, and Draco had shaken Fleur's hand while she beamed at him and tossed her shining silver hair. "Malfoy," Fleur had said. "I know that name, that is a French name. Is your family French?" Draco had admitted that at one time, they probably had been. "You are part-veela, are you not?" Fleur continued. "I am as well. I am sure we are related, I have brothers who look just like you. I take one look at you across the hall and think to myself, "That is a beautiful boy, he must be related to me!" Fleur said this with no shred of humility. She was just as conceited as Draco, which in Harry's opinion lent a certain credibility to her assurance that they shared family. "I think she fancies you," he had said to Draco once Fleur had gone, but Draco had shaken his head. "We're both part-veela, we're immune to each other's charms," he'd said. "She just likes me because I look like her." Whether or not they fancied each other, Harry thought, looking at them, they'd formed an effective mutual admiration society. Draco rarely went anywhere these days without Fleur tagging along at his heels. It was almost funny, Harry thought, after all he was the same age as Draco and it wasn't all that long ago that Fleur had considered him too "leetle" of a boy to be taken seriously... The owl hooted again, snapping Harry back to attention. He gave the owl a Knute, took his red-ribboned letter, and tore it open eagerly. Dearest Harry, I can't write much because I'm rushing off to London, but I'll send you another letter later, by Pig. Ron and the Weasleys are fine. Mr and Mrs. Weasley have gone off to the seaside for a romantic holiday, and Fred and George are in Hogsmeade at the joke shop, so it's just me and Ron and of course Ginny, who is back from France and sends her love. Guess who sent me a letter out of the blue? Viktor Krum, of all people. I would have thought he'd have been too busy to write anyone, he's been touring around with the Bulgarian team, but he's in London now, so I'm going to stop by the Leaky Cauldron and see him. I'll tell him you say hello. And please say hi to Professor Lupin for me. I can't wait to see you at Sirius and Narcissa's wedding. I'm glad that Sirius is going to be happy, nobody deserves it more than he does. All my love, Hermione Harry folded the letter up with a feeling of unease. When he glanced up, he saw Draco and Fleur watching him. "What's wrong, 'Arry?" said Fleur with cheerful concern. "'As your girlfriend left you for someone else? Is she pregnant?" The letter flew out of Harry's hands. "What?" he sputtered. "That's ridiculous. How would she be pregnant?" Fleur and Draco both grinned at him. "Perhaps now is the time to have that talk about the facts of life, Potter," said Draco, still grinning. Bugger, thought Harry, I walked right into this one. "Shut up, Malfoy," he said. "Because that whole stork thing, that's just a smokescreen, you know. Even in the wizarding world." Fleur was giggling madly behind her hand. "That is disappointing to hear," said a voice at Harry's elbow. Harry spun around to see Professor Lupin standing behind him, a faint smile on his face. "Hallo, Harry," he said. Harry grinned at Lupin, who, he thought, was looking a lot better than he had three years ago. He actually seemed to have fewer lines on his face, although that could just have been the fact that he was very brown from the summer sunshine. They were all getting brown, including Draco, which seemed, in Harry's opinion, to go against all laws of nature. Surely it wasn't possible to be so very fair-haired and light-eyed and still not burn in the sun? But then again, Fleur was the same way. She and Draco were now both very brown, with bleached sugar-white hair. Harry himself had gotten darker, and had developed a row of freckles across his nose, which he had never known he had. He hoped they weren't too odd-looking. Hermione had freckles across her nose and he thought those were adorable, but it might be different for boys. "Professor Lupin," said Harry, wrenching his mind off the topic of Hermione and her nose. "It's good to see you. Do you want to sit down? Have you eaten lunch yet?" "Actually, I have," said Lupin. "I was just looking for you, Harry. And your roommate." He inclined his head towards Draco, who raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Looking for me? Why?" "Something Dumbledore told me," said Lupin, sounding a bit evasive. "I was wondering if we could go back to your room for a moment? There's something I wanted to ask you two about." Harry and Draco looked at each other, shrugged, and stood up. "Sure," said Harry. "Why not?" "See you later," said Draco to Fleur, who was looking mildly indignant at being abandoned. Lupin walked ahead of them as they crossed the Hall and went up the stone staircase that led to the boys' dormitories. "Did Hermione tell you she's seeing Victor Krum in London?" Harry asked Draco, and was rewarded by seeing him start slightly. "Big overgrown Bulgarian git," said Draco, "What's she seeing him for?" "He's not so bad," said Harry, feeling more magnanimous towards Krum suddenly. It was probably the fact that he had known something about Hermione that Draco hadn't. "Professor Lupin!" he called out, quickening his pace. "This is our room right here." Draco opened the door and they all went in. It was a large stone room, big enough to house six or seven boys, although Harry and Draco were its only occupants. It had two fireplaces, one at each end of the room, a large bay window with a stone seat, and two beds hung with velvet hangings. Harry's trunk rested at the foot of his bed; Draco's at the foot of his. Lupin sat down in a chair, while Harry and Draco each sat on the ends of their respective beds. Lupin, Harry thought, was looking oddly uneasy, although he smiled at Harry when he caught Harry glancing at him. "It's good to see you again, Harry," he said with a smile. "I don't know if I told you that." "I've been looking forward to having your class all week," said Harry, smiling back at Lupin. "We've only had class so far with Professor Emble, and he just says the same thing over and over again." "'There are three words every Magid must take to heart,'" said Draco, quoting Professor Emble. "'Control, control, control.'" He grinned at Lupin. "I told him that was one word three times, but he didn't care." "Control is important," said Lupin gently. "Yeah, I know," replied Draco, looking unrepentant. "But I'm already good at that, so..." "Which reminds me," said Lupin. "Draco, Professor Dumbledore wrote me to say that you were in possession of Salazar Slytherin's sword. He asked me if I would take a look at it. " Draco shrugged. "If you like." He frowned. "But your hands-" "The sword burns non-Magid humans," said Lupin calmly. "Being of the Lonely Ones, I should be able to touch it." "The Lonely Ones?" echoed Harry. "Werewolves," said Lupin. "It's what we call ourselves." "Wouldn't The Vicious Hairy Biting Ones be a bit more accurate?" said Draco, grinning. "Shut up, Malfoy," said Harry irritably. But Lupin, surprisingly, was smiling as he looked at Draco. "You remind me so much of Sirius when he was young," he said. "It's really uncanny." "So he was also charming and good-looking?" said Draco. "Sirius told me that when he was in school he was obnoxious," said Harry. "He was all of the above," said Lupin, still smiling. Harry had to admit it was nice to see Lupin looking pleased. It lit up his whole face and made his odd gold-green eyes shine. "Now, Draco..." "Right," said Draco, hopping out of his chair, and going across the room to his trunk, which he threw open. He took the sword out, and held it up for a moment to look at it. It its own way, it was a very beautiful object; the sunlight from the window slid down the blade like water, and the green jewels in the iron hilt sparkled. "Here you go," he said, walking across the room and handing it to Lupin. Lupin picked it up and turned it over, running his hand gently along the blade. "This is a very powerful magical object," he said. Draco looked pleased. "Do you mind if I try an experiment on it?" asked Lupin, turning the sword over and looking at it hard. Draco shrugged. "As long as you don't break it." Lupin turned the blade over, running his thin, flexible fingers along it. Then he said, "Indicio!"" Harry and Draco leaned over, staring, as writing appeared on the blade, carved into the metal. It was blackened with age and looked as if it had been there forever. Descensus averno facilis est. "What does that mean?" asked Draco wonderingly. Lupin looked as if he didn't quite understand either. "It's Latin," he said. "It means Easy is the Descent Into Hell." "That's cheerful," said Harry. "Are you sure it doesn't mean "have a nice day'?" said Draco hopefully. "Or "this sword is worth a lot of money'?" "Or "'I belong to a massive git'?" suggested Harry. "No," said Lupin. "It means what I said it means." Both Harry and Draco looked uneasy. "I dunno what that's about," said Draco. "But it sounds bad." "Salazar Slytherin was not the nicest man," said Lupin. He stood up. "With your permission, Draco, I'd like to take this sword back to my office and look at it more closely." "Go ahead," said Draco, who was now looking at the sword with suspicion. "But no running in the hallway!" he added as Lupin turned to leave. "That thing is sharp." *** As they neared the Leaky Cauldron, Ginny checked her watch. She and Hermione had promised Ron they'd meet him back at Flourish and Blott's at three o'clock, and it was already two, which didn't leave Hermione a lot of time to have coffee with Krum. Ginny cast a sideways glance at Hermione, who was looking very smart and pretty in a short red coat, with her hair done up in a bun stuck through with red chopsticks. She was looking slightly nervous, as Ginny supposed she would be too if she was going to meet someone she hadn't seen in two years, who had once been violently in love with her and for all anyone knew, might still be. Of course, as far as Ginny knew, no one had ever been violently in love with her. Not Harry, who she still loved...not anyone. "We're here," said Hermione, stopping under the sign of the Leaky Cauldron. "Come in with me, won't you?" she added, looking at Ginny hopefully. "Sure," said Ginny, and started up the stairs with her. They ducked into the dark main room of the Leaky Cauldron, which was nearly empty. Ginny was squinting around, her eyes adjusting slowly to the lack of light, when a huge shape suddenly loomed up out of the dimness. "Her-my-own-ninny," said a gravelly voice. Hermione caught Ginny's hand and squeezed it nervously. "Viktor!" she said. "It's so good to see you." The passage of three years hadn't changed Viktor Krum's dark, gloomy appearance much. If anything, it had made him slightly craggier; he towered over Hermione and Ginny, glowering down at them from under beetling black eyebrows. "Herm-my-own-ninny," he said again, "I vont to talk to you." He glanced significantly at Ginny. "Alone." Ginny looked at Hermione, who looked back at her in surprise. "I'm not going off and leaving Hermione here!" said Ginny indignantly. "She won't be able to get back on her own!" But Viktor was still looking at Hermione. "Please," he said. "Just five minutes. In there." He jerked his head to the side, indicating a smaller room off the main one. Hermione looked at Ginny, then shrugged. "All right. Five minutes," she said. "Ginny, if you don't mind waiting here..." Ginny shook her head. "Of course not." She watched as the towering Krum shepherded the much smaller figure of Hermione through the far exit, and closed the door behind them, and shook her head. She didn't know what Krum wanted to say to Hermione, but from his expression, it was hardly good news. In her opinion, Hermione never should have agreed to meet him, he hardly seemed trustworthy and then there was Harry to consider. If Harry was her boyfriend, Ginny thought she would never... no, she told herself, squelch that thought! Never going to happen. The far door opened and Hermione came out, looking flustered. She came up to Ginny and took her hands. Ginny nearly cried out; Hermione's hands were freezing cold. "Ginny," she said, "I've got to stay here and talk to Viktor. You go ahead and meet Ron. Viktor can drop me off at the Burrow later." Astonished, Ginny goggled at her. "Are you sure?" "Yes," said Hermione, very firmly. "But Hermione," said Ginny, dropping her voice, "I don't feel right just leaving you here. Can't he...can't he come back to the Burrow with us and you can talk there?" Hermione shook her head. "You'll understand later, Ginny," she said, and as Ginny still looked doubtful, added irritably, "I know what I'm doing, all right?" Ginny stared as Hermione turned on her heel, walked away, and disappeared into the room where Viktor was, closing the door behind her. Feeling slightly dazed, Ginny turned and walked out of the Leaky Cauldron into the bright daylight of Diagon Alley. *** (Draco sleeping)*** Out of a dream of blood and fire, Draco awoke to find himself being shaken, hard, by the shoulder. He blinked, trying to see in the darkness. "Potter?" he croaked. "Ow! What are you doing -?" And broke off. For the eyes staring at him out of the darkness were not green, but dark red, veined with yellow. Draco yelled. And threw himself sideways off the bed, rolling across the floor. He fetched up against the side of his trunk and scrambled to his knees, staring. It was nearly pitch black in the room, but he could see the hunched shape of something, something the size of a dog, crouching at the foot of his bed, glaring at him out of vicious-looking red eyes. In the other bed, Harry bolted up and reached for his glasses. "Malfoy, what-" He broke off. Draco wasn't sure if Harry had seen the dark shape, and didn't much care either. Still on his knees, he fumbled for the lid of his trunk and wrenched it open. He plunged his hand inside, and then remembered, with a sickening lurch in his stomach, that he had given his sword to Lupin that afternoon. His wand, where was his wand- "Lumos," said Harry. Light blossomed out of the tip of the wand Harry was holding, and lit the room with a bluish glow. It illuminated Harry, sitting up in bed, Draco, crouched on the floor, and the creature, whatever it was, which gave a shrill scream and cowered away from the light. "Don't hurt me!" it shouted, in perfectly recognizable English, although its voice sounded less like a human voice and more like a bonfire crackling words. "Please don't hurt me!" Harry looked at Draco. Draco looked back. Neither of them spoke, but they were both obviously thinking the same thing: it couldn't be that horrible a monster if it was afraid of two boys in pajamas. "What is it?" said Draco, looking at Harry in astonishment. "No idea," replied Harry, getting out of bed. Draco got to his feet and stood next to Harry as they both stared, Harry holding his wand ready. The whatever-it-was was about the size of a dog, with gray, scaled skin and a perfectly round, earless head. It had no nose either, and its mouth was a long slit. It was holding up two gray, long-fingered hands in entreaty. "Okay," said Harry, staring at it, "We won't hurt you. Just...calm down." "The hell we won't," said Draco, who was still very shaken. "What d'you mean jumping on me in the middle of the night like that? What do you want?" The creature said, in the same crackling voice, "Hurt me if you will. I have come here only for what is mine." Harry and Draco looked at each other in bewilderment. "Come again?" said Harry politely. "I have come for what is mine," repeated the creature. "My other half!" It fetched up a dry sob and looked pitifully at Draco and Harry. "For many years, it was hidden from me. And then I began to sense it had returned to the world. I sought it over land and ocean. And found it here. It is mine!" screamed the creature, "and it has been lost these thousand years!" "What is it, exactly, this other half of yours?" asked Draco. "I mean, you look pretty complete to me, not missing any bits or parts, unless you count that you don't have any ears, I suppose. Is it an ear you're looking for?" The creature glared at him with contempt. "You are a very stupid mortal boy," it said, "and if I had my other half and my full powers, I would eat you." Draco looked furious. Harry put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Nobody's eating anyone here," he said. "Can you tell us a bit more about this, um, other half that you've misplaced?" The creature looked livid. "I did not misplace it! It was taken from me by force by an evil wizard, and hidden from me; I have sought everywhere and it is HERE!" Harry was looking at the creature with his head cocked thoughtfully to one side. "You're a demon, aren't you?" The creature looked shifty. "I am not," it said. "Oh, yes you are," said Harry, gaining conviction. "We did demons last year in Defense Against the Dark Arts. I know how to banish them, too." He pointed at the creature with his hand. "Dispelle-" DRACO SINISTER Part Two: Ink, Blood, and Brotherhood ********** She's breaking up with me," said Harry. "She's what?" "Breaking up with me," said Harry again, still with the same look of utter, blank astonishment. "She's not," said Draco, with conviction. "You're reading the letter wrong. Give it to me." It was doubtless a mark of how very shocked Harry was that he did so, holding it out mutely for Draco to take. Draco snatched it, and read it quickly. Dear Harry, I saw Viktor this afternoon, and realized that I have really loved him all these years and still do. I am going with him to his home in Bulgaria where we can be together. You will always be a dear friend of mine, but I have realized that my heart belongs to Viktor alone. Please don't try to contact me. Hermione "Not a lot of room for interpretation there," said Harry in a doom-laden sort of voice. "Pretty straightforward." "She can't be in love with Viktor Krum, she just can't be," protested Draco, scanning the letter again in an attempt to find some other analysis of Hermione's short missive. "I mean, I always figured if she left you, it would be for me. Sorry," he added, looking up at Harry. "But, really. Viktor Krum?" Harry just looked at him blankly. "Why not Viktor Krum?" "Because he's a big stupid Neanderthal who can't even pronounce her name!" "It doesn't matter," said Harry hollowly. "She doesn't love me. That's what matters." He took the letter back from Draco, looked at it as if it were a weird foreign object, and stuffed it in his pocket. "I guess we'd better go to class." "What?" "Class," said Harry. "We've got Lupin's class at nine." "You mean you're just going to go to class, as if...as if nothing..." But Harry had already turned around and was wandering off down the hallway. Draco stared after him in disbelief. He couldn't quite understand why Harry was acting like he'd just been given the Dementor's Kiss. If it had been him, he'd be yelling and throwing heavy objects. Maybe Harry was in shock? Draco had read about people being in shock. You were supposed to make them lie down and cover them with a heavy blanket. However, knocking Harry down in the hallway and throwing a blanket on him seemed unfeasible. "Ello, Draco!" said a voice at his elbow. Fleur. Just who he didn't want to see. "Fleur, I've got to get to class right now..." "You 'ave class with Lupin, am I correct? I 'ave the same class. We can go together!" she announced brightly, and took his arm as he started walking. Draco picked up his pace until he was walking alongside Harry, who was still looking expressionless. ""Ello, 'Arry!" chirped Fleur. Harry said nothing. "Is 'Arry all right?" she said in an undertone to Draco. He was spared replying as she spotted Professor Lupin coming around a bend in the hallway up ahead. He nodded a greeting as his eyes fell on them, then ducked into the classroom. "Now 'e is very good-looking," said Fleur complacently. "Not like those other professors. This one, 'e 'as..." "Animal magnetism?" suggested Draco. "Yes," said Fleur, and smiled. Draco was relieved when she let go of his arm and dashed into the classroom after Lupin. He turned quickly to Harry. "Potter, are you sure..." "I'm fine, Malfoy." Draco wanted to tell Harry that he didn't look fine. He looked as if he were going to be sick, as a matter of fact. But there was no opportunity. Students had begun pouring into the classroom, and Harry went with them. Draco followed Harry, and sat down where he could keep an eye on him. He wasn't sure what this weird calm of Harry's betokened, but was sure it wasn't good. Draco himself felt fairly stunned. Hermione, running off with Viktor Krum? Being in love with Viktor Krum? It was about as in character for her as forgetting to study for final exams. Nobody knew Hermione like he did, watched her like he did, saw the way she looked at Harry like he did. So many times watching her watching Harry....she couldn't possibly not be in love with Harry after all. His world might be built on some strange foundations, Draco thought grimly, but dammit they were foundations, and if Hermione ran off with Viktor Krum then it all came crashing down. What the hell was she thinking? "...very pleased to be teaching this class." Professor Lupin's voice broke in on Draco's thoughts, and he glanced up. Lupin was standing behind his desk, on which sat a large glass globe and a stack of books. He had just finished writing the title of the class on the board: FUNDAMENTALS OF MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION FOR MAGIDS. Fleur was sitting in the front row, staring fixedly at Lupin. Draco began to wonder what might happen if Lupin noticed. Fleur's direct stare had a tendency to cause males of almost any age to begin acting in an eccentric manner. "Now," Lupin went on, "you all know that as Magids, you have access to abilities that other wizards do not. Whether you choose to learn to utilize these powers to their fullest is up to you, but you all have the potential. First, however, you must learn what these abilities are." He turned again, and wrote another word on the board: ANIMAGUS. A faint whisper of surprise ran around the classroom. Reflexively, Draco turned and looked at Harry, who was staring fixedly at his quill as if it held all the secrets of the universe, and didn't appear to have heard a word that Lupin had said. "Any wizard can become an Animagus," Lupin went on, "but for most, it takes strenuous effort and years of training. The larger an animal you wish to become, the greater your skill as a wizard and your innate magical gifts must be. For a Magid, however..." Draco stopped listening to Lupin; he was looking at Harry again. Harry was still staring at his quill with a blank expression. Draco leaned sideways towards him and said, out of the side of his mouth, "I was just thinking about this Hermione thing, Potter, and I--" Bang! The glass bottle of ink on Harry's desk exploded like a miniature bomb. Glass and ink flew in every direction, splattering an astonished Harry's desk and clothes. Draco touched his hand to his face and it came away black and red: ink and blood. A flying shard of glass had cut his cheek. Some of the people sitting near Harry and Draco started to mutter in surprise. Ignoring them, Draco looked at Harry with sudden alarm. Harry wasn't any good at controlling his emotions, in fact he was terrible at it, and if the shock was starting to wear off, then... BANG! The glass globe on Lupin's desk blew apart. Lupin jumped back, and several students ducked as fair-sized shards of glass flew over their heads and shattered against the opposite wall. Draco jumped to his feet and grabbed the back of Harry's robes. "Come on, Potter," he said. "But I didn't--" "Come on!" Half-dragging Harry, Draco backed out of the classroom as Lupin and the rest of the class stared at them in astonishment. Once out in the hallway, he kicked the classroom door shut and let go of Harry, who sat down hard on the floor and looked up at him with a dazed expression. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?" yelled Draco, fuming. He was covered in ink and bits of glass, and was fairly sure that his shirt was permanently ruined. "Get a grip on yourself!" "I'm not doing anything!" Harry yelled back furiously. CRASH! One of the stained-glass windows set high in the wall above their heads shattered, raining down bright bits of glass. "Stop it!" shouted Draco, covering his head. "D'you want to bring the whole school down around our ears, you stupid prat?" Now Harry was starting to look worried. "But I don't mean to be--" He broke off as a large, ominous crack appeared in another window. Draco was now seriously alarmed. Given Harry's already-proven abilities to conjure up hailstorms of owls and blue snow, he was afraid it might at any moment start raining toads. Or bricks. Or sharp, pointy objects. "Potter," he said,. "I want you to know something. Ultimately, this is for your own good." "What is?" said Harry, looking at him in bewilderment. "This," said Draco, and kicked Harry, hard, in the ribs. "Uck!" said Harry, or something very like, doubling up and gasping. When he got his breath back, he looked up at Draco in fury. "You asshole, Malfoy," he said, got to his feet, and punched Draco in the eye. It was not in Draco's nature to take a pummeling without fighting back. He swung at Harry and hit him in the jaw. It was ultimately, however, a losing proposition; Draco was taller and had the greater reach, but Harry had the strength born from blind fury-not just at Draco, but at life in general. By the time Lupin and the rest of the class had poured out of the room to see what was going on, Harry was sitting on top of Draco and hitting him with both fists. "'Arry!" squealed Fleur, who didn't like to see boys fighting unless it was over her. "You will not 'it Draco! You will ruin 'is face!" "HARRY!" bellowed Lupin, his voice dripping icicles. "DRACO. YOU WILL EXPLAIN YOURSELVES." Harry stopped hitting Draco and stared from him to Lupin, looking dazed. "IN MY OFFICE NOW!" said Lupin. Harry got up, and so did Draco. Both of them were bleeding, although Draco looked a deal worse than Harry. They reluctantly followed Lupin down the hall to his office, aware of the curious stares of the other students at their backs. Lupin yanked the door of his office open, ushered them inside, hissed "SIT DOWN AND DON'T MOVE UNTIL I GET BACK," and slammed the door. It was suddenly very quiet, except for the gentle ticking of the clock on the office wall. Draco looked at Harry out of the corner of his eye. Harry looked at Draco out of the corner of his eye. And saw that he was grinning. "What's funny, Malfoy?" he said with a mixture of curiosity and indignation. "Kept you from burying us all in a mountain of shrapnel, didn't I?" said Draco, who could only grin out of one side of his mouth, which gave him a lopsided and vaguely psychotic air. "Distracted you at the crucial moment. Feel better now?" Harry, who did indeed feel better, looked down at his bleeding knuckles, then back up at Draco, and felt also suddenly guilty. "Malfoy," he said haltingly, "I'm really, really sorry that I-" "Forget it!" said Draco cheerfully. "The look on your face when I kicked you in the ribs, that was so worth it!" Harry's feeling of guilt vanished. "There's just no point apologizing to you, is there?" Draco waved a dismissive hand. "I don't ever apologize, why should you?" "You don't apologize? Like you don't faint?" "Right," said Draco. "What else don't you do?" "I don't cry," said Draco. "And I don't dance. Hate dancing." He shuddered. "And I don't think Hermione's in love with Viktor Krum, either." Harry winced. "Can we not talk about that?" "Come on, Potter!" said Draco, who had wandered over to Lupin's desk and was casually examining the objects that lay on it. "Think about it. It makes no sense--" He broke off. "Hey, Potter, look at this." Harry came over to see what Draco was looking at, and glanced over his shoulder. A large and rather musty-looking book sat open on Lupin's desk. Harry touched it gingerly; it had a thick leathery cover and the pages were old, yellowed and powdery. The book was open to a page which showed woodcut illustrations of various objects --- something that looked like a gauntlet, then a rather nasty-looking skull, and underneath both those things, a drawing of a sword. It wasn't detailed, but the jewels in the hilt were very definitely green. The heading across the top of the page read: Daemonic Artifacts: A User's Guide. The Living Blade. The writing beneath that was very hard to read, being splotched with bits of candle-wax and the occasional suspicious-looking brown stain. ...For which this blade was at one time or still is, any part or partition of the body or spirit of a demon... whosoever possesses such a blade must know its nature. Such a blade can be borne; but at great cost to the bearer, whether that cost be of body, or of soul in the nature of an Exchange. Whosoever comes across such an object must know that it is a Talisman of Purest Evil, and should only be dealt with in a manner pursuant to its destruction. "Purest Evil," said Harry thoughtfully. "That sounds bad." "What sounds bad is that he's going to destroy my sword," said Draco, looking furious. "I never should have lent it to him...what was I thinking?" "You don't know he's going to destroy your sword," said Harry reasonably. "It might not be one of these...Living Blade things." Draco looked at Harry. Harry looked sheepish. "Okay, okay. It probably is. But if it's a Talisman of Purest Evil, do you really want to keep it?" "Hell, yes," said Draco. Harry shook his head. "I do not understand you, Malfoy." The office door opened, and they both jumped back several feet. It was Lupin of course, looking very grave. He came into the office, shut the door behind him, and sat down behind his desk. He looked from Harry--who was cowering against one wall--to Draco, who was cowering against the wall opposite, and said, "I'm sorry I shouted at you. You...alarmed me. I'm not much of a fan of physical violence, and Harry, I rather thought you weren't either." "Oh, he's not usually," said Draco cheerfully. "But Hermione stomped all over his heart with hobnailed boots, so he's a bit edgy." "Hermione..?" Lupin echoed, looking astounded. Harry, who had gone red, scowled and said nothing. "All right," said Lupin. "Never mind. I've always thought it was unfortunate," he added, "that one's Magid powers, which are so closely tuned to both one's wizarding skills and one's control over emotions, tend to kick in right around adolescence, when one had very little of either. Harry, stop scowling. I'm sure Hermione would never, er, do anything to..." He trailed off. "All right, that's none of my business. But if you're really upset, Harry, maybe you should talk to Sirius?" "Oh," said Harry. "No. I don't think so." "Actually, that's not that bad of an idea," said Draco. "He could beat up Viktor Krum for you, Potter." "Viktor Krum?" repeated Lupin, raising his eyebrows. "Hermione went to Bulgaria with Viktor Krum last night," said Draco, who seemed determined to act as Greek Chorus. "And she wrote Harry a letter, but I've been telling him I don't think she meant it, because I mean if you've ever seen pictures of Krum he's only got one eyebrow and Potter here might not be winning any beauty competitions, but--" "That's impossible!" said Lupin, who was looking both exasperated and amused. "It isn't," said Draco. "He really only has the one eyebrow." "I meant," said Lupin, "that Hermione er, running off with Viktor Krum to Bulgaria is impossible." Harry looked startled. "Why do you say that?" "Because," said Lupin, "Viktor Krum is in London. He led the Bulgarian Quidditch team to a stunning victory again Switzerland just this morning. I heard a play-by-play on the Wizarding Wireless. He is most definitely," Lupin added, "and certainly, NOT in Bulgaria." *** "Percy, come on," said Ron, exasperated. "Can't you be helpful, just this once?" "Percy, please," added Ginny, looking entreatingly at her older brother, or at least all of him that was visible -- which was his head, floating in the fireplace. Ron and Ginny were kneeling in front of the fireplace, trying very hard not to cough from the soot. "No," said Percy firmly, looking very cross. "I am NOT going to give you Viktor Krum's home address in Bulgaria. Do you know what kind of trouble I could get into with the Department of Magical Games and Sports?" "We're not going to track him down and slaughter him, Perce," said Ron irritably. "We just want to send a letter to Hermione, see if she's all right." Percy made an irritated noise. "Look, Ron, I'm sorry your girlfriend ran off with Viktor Krum, but he is very famous and rich and you really can't blame her. Just try to be a good sport about it, who don't you?" "Hermione is not my girlfriend," said Ron, through gritted teeth. "She is Harry's girlfriend." "Well," said Percy, in a patronizing tone, "She's Viktor's girlfriend now, isn't she?" "That's just it!" said Ron, pouncing on this statement like Pigwidgeon onto a tasty mouse. "I don't think she is, at least not voluntarily. I think," he said, dropping his voice, "that she was under some sort of Hex...or a love potion!" "Ron!" Percy exclaimed, horrified. "Use of love potions is completely illegal, you know that! Viktor Krum would never do that, he's...he's...a famous international figure!" "So is Voldemort," said Ginny crankily. Percy and Ron turned on her. "Don't say the name!" "Why not? Harry does." "You're not Harry!" said Ron, unhelpfully, and turned back to Percy. "Percy, just because he's a famous Quidditch player, that doesn't mean anything. He was just obsessed with Hermione two years ago, it was really disgusting, he's so much older than her--" "Ron!" Percy interrupted. "Do you have any idea how busy I am right now? The Ministry is in an uproar! There's chaos in the streets! This morning Minister Fudge got five hundred owls! Five hundred! And guess who has to answer them all? Me!" Ron and Ginny stared at each other, then back at Percy. "Five hundred owls?" said Ron in surprise. "Why? What's going on?" Percy turned an apoplectic shade of purple. "Don't you even read the paper anymore?" he shouted. "We were too worried about Hermione," said Ginny, looking startled. "Well, go read it!" snapped Percy. "And don't bother me again until you have!" And he vanished. Ginny and Ron stared at each other, then got to their feet. Without speaking, Ginny went to the front door, collected the Daily Prophet, and brought it inside, where she spread it out on the kitchen table. "Oh," she said faintly, catching sight of the headline, "Ron..." Ron crossed the room to stand next to her and looked down at the front page of the paper, which read, in huge letters: DEMENTORS ABANDON AZKABAN. The Ministry of Magic has confirmed at this time that the dementors, longtime guards of wizard prison Azkaban, have abandoned their posts as the protectors of the over two hundred prisoners that Azkaban currently holds. There is no word as to where they might have gone, according to Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic. "It appears that they simply vanished. We have no idea where they have gone; however, no prisoners have escaped and the dementors have been replaced by fully trained and qualified wizards from the Agency for Magical Law Enforcement." Fudge stressed that the magical community should remain calm; all prisoners remain safely in Azkaban and there have been no reported escapes. "We've been discussing the matter of replacing the dementors with qualified wizards for a long time now within the Ministry," adds Percy Weasley, Assistant to the Minister of Magic. "Really, this is all for the best as it gives us an opportunity to implement our new program." "Percy, you git," said Ron, under his breath. "How is this a good thing? Dementors running rampant over the countryside..." "But they're not," said Ginny. "It says they've just vanished." Ron was biting his knuckle thoughtfully. "Like Hermione," he said. "You don't honestly think those two things are related, do you? Or do you think they all ran off with Viktor Krum?" "Well, no obviously, but if there's one thing I've learned being friends with Harry all these years, it's that when weird things start happening all at the same time, they're usually connected. That, and a big spider is nobody's friend." Ginny shook her head, staring anxiously out at the Pigwidgeon-free sky. "I just wish we would hear from Harry," she said fretfully. "I want to know what she told him." Ron looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "If she did really break up with him for Viktor Krum," he said slowly, "would you be all that upset, Ginny?" "I realized a long time ago," replied Ginny, not looking at her brother, "that either I could spend the rest of my days waiting for Harry Potter to notice me, or I could get on with my life." Ron expelled the breath he had been holding. "Good, Gin. That's good to hear." He went back to reading the paper. "Yeah, well," said Ginny, too softly for him to hear, "I didn't choose yet." *** "If you keep pacing like that, Potter," said Draco, not opening his eyes, "I will nail your feet to the floor. And don't think I won't." Harry whirled and glared at Draco, who was lying on his bed, fully-dressed, in the position in which he normally slept - on his back, with his arms crossed over his chest. "How can you sleep like that?" Harry demanded, sounding aggrieved. "You sleep like a vampire bat. It's...unnatural." "My mum used to say I slept like a little baby angel," said Draco, unfazed. Harry commenced pacing again. He had been pacing up and down the room since they had left Lupin's office, and it was now five o'clock in the afternoon. Draco sighed, sat up, and unfolded his arms. He hadn't really wanted to go to sleep anyway, he was frankly afraid that if he did, he would have another nightmare. "Potter..." "I just can't believe I haven't heard from Ron yet. I mean, she was staying with them at the Burrow, if she's gone off somewhere then he must know about it..." "Well, that was his owl he sent this morning, maybe he hasn't got another?" Harry sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "It's possible, I guess." He looked up at Draco. "You know what? You're right. Pacing is stupid. I'm not gonna pace any more." "Good," said Draco, in relief. "I'm going to fly to the Burrow instead." "What? That's the most ridiculous-" Draco broke off. "Actually," he said grudgingly, "that makes a lot of sense. We can't be more than what, four hours from there by broomstick? If we leave now, we can be there at nine, and back here for breakfast. It's a lot better than waiting around for some stupid owl." Harry was looking at him with a half-smile. "We?" "I'm going with you," said Draco, standing up, and pulling his black travelling cloak out of his trunk. Harry reached for his own cloak. "Is this the part where you tell me that we're a team now?" "No," said Draco, straightening up. "This is the part where I tell you that if you don't bring me with you I'll go right to Lupin and tell him you've flown to England, and when you get back, they'll expell you." Harry reached for his broom. "You wouldn't tell on me, would you, Malfoy?" "I have made a long and brilliant career out of telling on you, Potter. Don't' think I'm going to stop now." *** When she heard the knock on the door, Ginny ran to answer it, half-hoping it would be Hermione, having seen sense and returned to the Burrow. But it wasn't Hermione. She recognized the person at the door immediately. Hating someone as much as she hated him had branded a certain image of him into her mind. He looked different than he had a year ago - taller, much browner, and if possible, even blonder - but it was definitely Draco Malfoy, wearing a black travelling cloak and carrying a broomstick in one hand. "Hallo," he said, looking at her as if he didn't quite remember who she was. "It's Ginny, right? Is your brother home?" She shut the door in his face and stood there, glaring at it. There was a moment of stunned silence from the other side of the door. Then another voice spoke, a very familiar voice, causing Ginny to jump. "Gin," said Harry's voice cautiously, "It's me. I'm, um, out here with Malfoy. Would you mind letting us in?" If Harry had asked Ginny to set the house on fire, she probably would have done it. She opened the door and looked mistrustfully at the two boys standing on the doorstep - Draco, looking startled, and Harry - tired and pale but so familiarly Harry, with the same green eyes and untidy hair and lightning-bolt scar. He was taller, too, and he was holding his Firebolt in one hand. "It's good to see you, Ginny," he said, although he looked a little wary. "Everything all right?" Ginny felt her lip trembling. "Harry," she said. "Oh, Harry. We've been so worried. Hermione -" Ron appeared behind Ginny, saw Harry, and then saw Draco. He didn't smile, but said, "You two had better come in." Draco looked at Harry, who was looking startled at this unusually cold reception. Harry shrugged, and they both stepped over the threshold and followed Ron and Ginny into the kitchen. *** "I bet you must have passed the owl we sent in midair on your way here," said Ron. All four of them were sitting around the Weasley's kitchen table, drinking tea. Draco was also methodically working his way through a jar of peanuts. Harry, who wasn't hungry, had just finished exchanging information with Ron and Ginny regarding the events of the past two days, from the news in the Daily Prophet to the contents of Hermione's letter to Harry. "Pig was too tired to go all the way back to Ireland again, so we had to get a municipal owl from the post office in town." Harry barely appeared to hear this; he seemed lost in thought. "So, when she left...she seemed odd to you?" "I told you that already," said Ron with a hint of impatience. "I mean, besides the sizeable weirdness involved in her going off with Krum in the first place yes, she seemed odd." "I think he used a love potion on her," said Ginny firmly. "I know they're illegal, but he's got a lot of money and knows a lot of people, I bet he could get hold of one." "But if all he was trying to do was get her to fall in love with him, then what's all this misdirection stuff about them going to Bulgaria, when he's right there in London? And if he's in London, then where is Hermione?" said Draco. "Maybe she doesn't want us to know where she is," said Harry. "Maybe she wants us to leave her alone." "Don't be ridiculous," snapped Draco. "Look, if she's really been in love with Krum all this time, then-" He broke off. He had been about to say "then she would have seen Krum in the mirror of Erised and not you," but he didn't know if Ron and Ginny knew about the mirror, and it was rather personal to Harry. Odd to know something about Harry that they didn't. "Well, then, why didn't she stay with him in Bulgaria when she had the chance two years ago? Instead of having Ron come and retrieve her? She couldn't have been having that great of a time." "She was only fourteen then," said Harry quietly. "Why is it," said Draco, his voice rising impatiently, "that out of all of us, YOU are the only one who seems prepared to believe that she left here of her own free will?" "I don't," said Harry irritably. "I'm just don't think that haring after Viktor Krum in a mad jealous rage is going to -" Draco Sinister Part 03: Darkness Visible 1 small note: 1. You may notice below that I took the "v"s out of Viktor Krum's speech. This is because it drives me crazy to write dialect. It bugged me to read it in Book 4 and it bugs me to write it myself, so I am sorry, I know it's off-canon and Viktor should say "I vont to valk to the vindow" and not "I want to walk to the window." So I do apologize if you miss his accent. Let's just pretend his English has improved in the years since Book 4, okay? *** Draco Sinister Part 03: Darkness Visible*** "Padfoot," said Remus Lupin softly, staring into the embers of the fire dying in his office grate. "Are you there? Can you hear me?" He was sitting at his desk, in the dark, an empty wineglass in his hand. He hadn't been drinking - he didn't drink much, and rarely alone - but he liked the feel of the glass in his hand, liked watching the moonlight from the window run around its rim like a darting point of fire. He put it down, stretched, and picked up a paperweight off his desk. Sirius had given it to him the year before. It was a clear glass snow globe in which reclined the figure of a tiny, pretty, red-haired nymph, resting on a miniature rock, playing the oboe. (Because it was a magic globe, the snow fell all the time, without needing to be shaken.) Lupin had always thought she looked a bit like Lily, although he never would have said so to Sirius. The nymph put her oboe down and looked at him. "Go to sleep, Remus," she said. "It's late." "I'm waiting for Padfoot," he said, softly. "We were supposed to talk." He put the globe down, got up from the desk, and walked over to the dying fire. He sat down and leaned his back against the brick of the fireplace, shutting his eyes. "Sirius Black," he whispered. "Where have you got to now?" "I'm here," said a voice at his elbow. Lupin opened his eyes and glanced down, saw Sirius' head and shoulders in the fire, and grinned. "Sorry," said Sirius. "It took me a while to find a proper wizarding house with a fireplace. Not many fireplaces in this part of Greece. Too hot." "Greece looks like it agrees with you," said Lupin. This was the truth; Sirius looked healthy and tanned and smiling, and the deadened, haunted look of Azkaban was nearly gone from his eyes. Nearly gone - Lupin doubted that it would ever leave Sirius entirely. "It does," said Sirius. He tilted his black eyes up to Lupin. "You said you wanted to talk to me about Harry," he said. "Is he all right?" "Harry's all right," said Lupin. "Well, as all right as expected. He's sixteen; he's got a load of new powers dumped on him and no way to deal with them. He's separated from his friends, and of course, every year of his life since he was eleven someone's tried to kill him. I think he's feeling a little weary and resentful." "He's not separated from his friends," said Sirius. "He's got Draco." "The Malfoy boy?" said Lupin, in surprise. "It was my impression they hated each other. Just this afternoon I had to pull Harry off him, he nearly beat him to a pulp in the hallway. Very unlike Harry. The Malfoy boy shrugged it off, said Harry was upset over breaking up with his girlfriend." "What, with Hermione?" "Oh, so you knew about that?" Lupin said with interest. "Harry never told me," replied Sirius with a grin. "It's my impression he'd rather suffer the Cruciatus Curse than tell me about his love life. But -" Sirius' shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I guessed." "How?" "Canine intuition," said Sirius. "And the fact that whenever he saw Hermione, he looked like someone had hit him with a Bludger. James used to look at Lily that way. It's an unmistakable sign." Lupin was grinning again. "I remember when you were sixteen and you-" "Oh no," interrupted Sirius firmly. "We're not talking about me. We are talking about HARRY." "Actually it was the Malfoy boy I wanted to talk to you about," said Lupin. "Draco. Terrible name, by the way. Poor kid." "Whereas 'Remus' is really gaining popularity," said Sirius. Lupin smiled. "Now you sound like Padfoot again," he said. "You must be fond of the Malfoy boy. Sorry. Draco." "I am," said Sirius. "He's not like his father. He reminds me of me at that age." "In other words, he's a ticking time bomb who hates the whole world and everyone in it?" "Not everyone," said Sirius, sounding amused. "Come on, Moony. What gives? Is he in trouble?" "I don't know," said Lupin thoughtfully. "Either he's in no trouble at all, or he's in worse trouble than we can possibly imagine." "Moony..." Sirius sounded exasperated. "All right." Lupin reached up and took a book off the top of his desk, balancing it on his knees. It was the same book that Harry and Draco had seen on his desk the day before, but there was no way for him to know that. "I really wonder if it was a good idea, Sirius, to let him keep that Magid sword of his." "I didn't let him keep it. That was Dumbledore's decision." "I suppose he had his reasons," said Lupin dubiously. "But that sword...if it's the sword I think it is...it's a very powerful and evil object." "It was Salazar Slytherin's sword, wasn't it?" "Well, there's the possibility it might be a fake or an imitation. I can see why the Malfoys, or any magical family, might want to claim they possessed something like that. The story goes that Salazar Slytherin sold his soul to a powerful demon in exchange for the use of a sword that would make the bearer invincible." "Did it work?" "Certainly. Slytherin won every battle he ever took part in. And then, one day - he vanished. Just vanished. Never seen again. And the sword was thought to be lost as well. In fact, the story goes that he reneged on his deal with the demons; he wasn't meant to keep the sword forever, but he refused to give it back at the appointed time, so..." Lupin shrugged. "No one knows what happened to him, but it's generally considered that it wasn't good." "He must not have been reading his Evil Overlord handbook," grinned Sirius. "Rule 54: 'I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being, then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.'" Lupin rolled his eyes. "Sirius..." "Sorry, I just honestly don't see what all of this has to do with Draco," said Sirius. "It's a demon sword, Sirius," said Lupin irritably. "It's got a lot of power and it has its own intelligence. Whether that intelligence is benevolent or malevolent, I don't know. It takes will and strength and skill to master something like that, and he's just a child." "When we were sixteen, we didn't think we were children." "Oh, but we were. Think how things might have turned out differently if we'd been a bit smarter, a bit more patient, a bit less trusting. Peter might not have turned out like he did, and James - James might be -" "Don't," interrupted Sirius. "Don't say it." Lupin sighed. "There's one other thing." "Oh, no," said Sirius, with finality. "What?" "I know you. Whenever you say "there's just one other thing' it means you've been saving up the worst possible news for last. 'Everything's perfectly fine, there's just one other thing, Harry got himself eaten by a basilisk.' That sort of thing." Sirius sighed. "Well, go on. Tell me." "There's a prophecy about the sword." "Bugger," said Sirius glumly. "Well, what is it?" Reading from the book, Lupin said: "When the sword is once again wielded in battle by a descendant of Slytherin, Slytherin himself will return, and he and his descendant will join together to wreak havoc and terror on the wizarding world." "I sometimes wonder how you can say these things with a straight face, Remus. Sorry!" Sirius added good-naturedly at Lupin's dark expression. "Well, I don't think we have anything to worry about yet. Draco hadn't wielded the sword in battle as far as I know. Harry was the one who used it against Lucius." Lupin expelled a breath of relief. "That's good. That's what I wanted to know." "Just keep him away from it," said Sirius. "Oh, right," Lupin replied. "Do you remember when we were sixteen, and people told us just to stay away from something, how obedient we were?" Sirius' eyes lit up with a smile. Lupin had only ever seen Sirius smile like that at a few people in his life. At James. At Lily. At himself. And at Harry. Maybe he smiled at Narcissa like that; Lupin didn't know. He hoped he did. "We were terrible, weren't we?" Sirius said. "No," said Lupin, smiling back. "We weren't terrible. We were great." *** Hermione screamed. And skittered backwards, on her elbows, as far away from the horror that was blocking the doorway as she possibly could. She hit the wall and pressed herself back against it, squeezing her eyes shut. Calm down, she told herself. Be brave. Be like Harry. Harry's seen worse things than this. Be like Harry. She opened her eyes. And saw what she had seen before. The wizard who had entered the room was still standing where he had been standing, motionless, his dark hood pulled back to show his face. It was the face of a man about Sirius' age - an olive-skinned face, with enormous, prominent cheekbones, and black hair that was matted and shaggy. This man had a large, beaky nose and dark eyebrows, and his mouth was a thin hard line. He was incredibly thin, even thinner than Sirius had been when he came out of Azkaban. Tattooed on each bony cheek was the clear image of a skull with a serpent protruding from its mouth. The Dark Mark. It was horrible to look at, but that wasn't why Hermione had screamed. It was because she knew who he was. How could she not? There were statues of him, portraits of him, all over Hogwarts. And yet it was impossible. Dark magic, she thought. This is very dark magic. He is dead. Dead for a thousand years. And to raise the dead was necromancy, the worst kind of black magic there was. He took a few steps toward her, and she stared at his feet, encased in thick black boots, because she couldn't bring herself to look back up that awful, scarred, marked face again. As he neared her, she he realized that a powerful smell was wafting off his robes - a smell like burning brandy. There was a heavy thuck-thuck noise as he dropped to his knees next to her. "Look at me," he said. His voice buzzed as if his skeletal throat had been stuffed with flies or locusts. "Look at me." Hermione looked up, although she didn't want to. She tried to clear her throat, couldn't, and said in a tiny voice that sounded as if it were being sucked through a straw, "Who are you?" "Don't you know me, Rowena?" said the buzzing voice. "I know I no longer look as I did. But you should still know your own Salazar." *** "Veritas!" Krum gasped as the Truth spell took hold of him. Draco knew how he felt; knew the agonizing pain of it, the feeling of being ripped open and exposed, but had neither the time nor the inclination to feel sorry for Viktor Krum. "Where is Hermione?" he demanded. "I -don't- know," Viktor bit out between gritted teeth. "Malfoy -" said Ron, in a hissing whisper, "It's illegal to use the Veritas curse - you could get Azkaban time for this." "I don't care," said Draco, not looking at Ron, but at Harry, who looked back at him with much the same expression he was sure he wore himself -grim resolution. It was the same expression Harry wore when he played Quidditch and was utterly determined to get the Snitch. When they had played against each other, that look on Harry's face had made Draco nervous. Now he found it oddly reassuring. "Go ahead, Malfoy," Harry said. "Please," Viktor interrupted unexpectedly. "I - I want to know the truth as well. Please ask me whatever you must." Draco looked back at Krum uncertainly. Krum was pale and was biting his lip with pain, but seemed sincere. "All right," said Draco, still holding the wand steady. "Viktor," he said. "Tell us what you remember from yesterday." Krum spoke, slowly and with effort. "In the morning, we play against Romania," he grunted. "We lose, and I am very angry because of it. I am also angry because they have not secured the tents for the players. When I return to my tent there is a man there and I have to chase him out." "What kind of man?" said Harry, in a very tight voice. "A very ordinary man," said Viktor. "You must understand, we have people in our tents all the time -- fans, and other such, they break in. This one, he wanted to give me a bottle of Bulgarian wine. So I drank some, and he went off. I walked back to my rooms and --" Viktor looked down. "I fell asleep, I think. I remember nothing more." "Viktor," said Draco steadily, "What happened when you got back to your room. You didn't go to sleep. What did you do?" Krum was pale and sweating. "I don't remember." Draco was gripping the wand so tightly now that his knuckles turned white. "What did you do?" Krum shook his head, clutching his chest as if it pained him. "I don't remember!" "He's lying," said Harry flatly. "You can't lie under the Veritas curse," said Draco in a low voice, turning his head to look at Harry. "I should know." "It's a memory charm, then," whispered Ron. "He's telling the truth as he thinks it is." "You can break a memory charm," said Harry, in the same flat, determined voice. "Malfoy. Give me your hand." "Why?" said Draco, warily. The last time Harry had asked Draco to give him his hand, he'd sliced his palm open with a penknife. "Because," said Harry, under his breath. "If we both hold the wand, and do the spell, it might be strong enough to break through the Memory charm." "It might," Draco conceded. "It also might be strong enough to reduce Bulgaria's best Quidditch player to a grease spot on the floor." "I don't think so," said Harry. "Not if we concentrate." "This is what I mean about letting Gryffindors plan things," snapped Draco. He and Harry were standing so close together, he could see himself reflected in Harry's glasses. He looked anxious and cross. "What kind of plan is 'concentrate'"? "Harry," interrupted Ron, anxiously. He couldn't quite hear what they were saying from where he stood, but Harry's expression was making him nervous. "Harry, I don't think-" Ignoring him, Harry reached out and grabbed Draco's left hand (did you ever doubt D. was a lefty?), interlocking their fingers around the wand. As he did so, the scar on his palm brushed the scar on Draco's, and he felt a jolt of freezing cold lance through his skin. He saw Draco's eyes flick up to his nervously. He had felt it, too. "This is a bad idea," said Draco, with foreboding. With another grim look, Harry turned the wand, now held in both their hands, towards Viktor. "Veritas," he whispered. Draco felt his hand jerk forward as if someone had yanked it. The wand shook in their joint grasp and he tightened his grip as a bolt of black light shot from the tip and struck Krum in the sternum, nearly knocking him sideways. Krum yelled out loud in agony, and fell to his knees, clutching his chest. Ron looked horrified. "Harry, what did you do?" Harry had released the wand, and dropped to his knees beside Krum, laying his hand on Krum's shoulder. "Viktor," he said urgently. "I want to take this off you as quickly as possible, but you have to tell us, what happened to you yesterday? Where were you last night?" "After the game I go back to my room," said Krum, looking startled to hear the sound of his own voice. Draco knew how he felt; the Veritas curse didn't just force you to tell the truth, it impelled you to speak - and speak - and speak. "I lie down on the bed. I am feeling very strange and I think it is the wine. Then there is a knocking on my door. I get up and answer it. It is the man that was in my tent. He points his hand at me and says Imperio." A look of astonishment spread over Viktor's face. He obviously hadn't been aware of any of this. "Then he gives me a.. a.. kak shte kazhesh tova na Angliyski.... " Ron, Draco and Harry glanced uncertainly at one another, none of them knowing any Bulgarian to speak of. But Viktor seemed to be back on track. "A glass, a bottle, of a liquid, he gave it to me and then he gave me instructions. I put on my cloak and walk out into Diagon Alley. I go to the Leaky Cauldron. I am waiting there until I see her, Her-my-own-ninny, come in the door." Viktor now sounded wistful. "she looks very happy and pretty. I ask her to come and speak to me for a moment. We go into the back room. She turns around to ask me a question, and I seize hold of her. I cover her mouth so she cannot scream and I force her to drink the potion." Krum's eyes were wide with horror. Draco, Harry and Ron were staring at him in shock and growing fear. "Now she is quiet, she is docile. She does what I tell her. She gets rid of the girl with red hair. She comes back into the room. We wait together and the man comes. He points his hand at her and says "Imperio..." Krum paused. "She is crying. He has to do the spell twice. Finally we leave, Her-my-own-ninny, and I. We fly to the Burrow and I wait while she goes to get her things and to write a letter to Harry. Then we get on my broom and we fly to King's Cross Station." Viktor's voice was growing hoarse now, whether from physical pain or from shock, Harry couldn't tell. "The man is waiting there, in Muggle clothes. He takes Her-my-own-ninny from me. Then I leave, and come back here. When I wake up..." He shook his head. "I remember nothing." "Harry," hissed Ron urgently. He was standing by the door now, looking even more anxious. "Harry, someone's going to come - someone must have heard Krum screaming -" But Harry was still staring at Viktor. "Where did he take her?" "I do not know! I do not know! You must believe me. Harry, you know I would never do anything to bring harm to Her-my-own-ninny!" Harry stood up and backed away from Viktor, who was still half-sitting, half-lying against the foot of the bed, looking utterly wrung out. Harry himself looked nearly as bad - he looked as if he were going to be sick. He took a step toward Draco. "I think we should hit him with the spell again," he said, under his breath. "Maybe there's something - maybe he knows-" "No," said Ron's voice, unexpectedly. They both turned and looked at him, leaning against the door, looking both panicked and angry. "Why would whoever took Hermione let Krum know where they were going?" he said. "Obviously they were just using him. If he weren't so famous, they probably would have killed him. If he says he doesn't know, I believe it. And Harry," he added, his voice tightening, "you're hurting him. It's not like you. I'm sorry, but both of you are pretty deranged where Hermione's concerned, so I think I should make this decision." He raised his wand, pointed it at Krum. "Finite -" "Wait," said Harry, quickly. "One more question. Just one more." He turned to Krum. "You said the man pointed his hand at Hermione when he performed the Imperius Curse. His hand, not his wand. Did he not use a wand?" Krum shook his head. "No," he said raggedly. "He used his hand." "A Magid, then," said Draco. "It was not an ordinary hand," said Krum. "He was a very ordinary little man. Small, and fat. But his hand was made of silver." Harry looked at Ron and Draco, who were staring at him with identical expressions of horror. It was Harry who spoke first. "Wormtail," he whispered. *** "Rowena?" gasped Hermione in disbelief. "My beautiful Rowena," said the wizard who had called himself Salazar. He reached out a gloved hand and touched Hermione's hair. She didn't move, even though the smell of burning alcohol made her throat sting. "That's not my name," said Hermione. "I'm - you have the wrong person. The wrong girl." "I wouldn't disagree with him if I were you," said a sharp and malicious voice. Hermione turned her head, and with very little surprise saw the familiar short, fat figure of Wormtail standing in the doorway. He was wearing gray robes, his silver hand protruding from the right sleeve. There was an ugly smirk on his face. "You do realize who you're talking to?" Hermione kept her eyes fixed on Wormtail as she replied. He was no beauty pageant winner, but at least he still had his entire face. "How did I get here?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice firm. "Wormtail brought you to me," said the buzzing voice at her left. "He is a very faithful servant." "Not that faithful," said Hermione to Wormtail in a shaking voice. "Considering that two weeks ago he was serving the Dark Lord!" "Now I serve the Master of my Master," said Wormtail. "The greatest of the Hogwarts Four, the most fearsome wizard ever to hold a wand." He grinned emptily at her. "Do you know who I am talking about? Hogwarts has gone sadly downhill if they no longer even teach their students a proper understanding of history." Hermione shut her eyes. "Salazar Slytherin is dead," she said. "And the dead can't come back." "It hurts me to hear you say that, my love," said the buzzing voice in her ear. Salazar Slytherin's voice - her mind didn't want to accept it, couldn't accept it. Something this horrible couldn't be happening to her. His black-gloved hand closed on her arm, and the shock of his grip was the single most unpleasant sensation Hermione had ever experienced. He hauled her upright on her wobbly legs, and turned her so that she faced him. "After so many years wandering the gray spaces," he said. "You brought me back to the world." "I did what?" Hermione gasped. "It was you who created the spell that broke the charm that held me captive," said Slytherin. "Surely you did it on purpose?" She looked desperately away from him, and saw Wormtail gazing at her. "Your Whirlwind Charm," he said. "Very clever, that. But perhaps not entirely sensible. It may have had," he leered coldly, "unintended consequences." "I don't understand," she panted, looking from one of them to the other. "Don't you remember?" said Slytherin, gazing at her out of his empty eyes. "When I told you that I would never truly die?" "No!" said Hermione sharply. "I don't remember, because I'm not who you think I am." She looked desperately at the skeletal face before her. "Rowena Ravenclaw is dead," she said. "She's been dead a thousand years." In reponse, one of his gloved hands shot out and seized at her neck. For a moment, she thought he was going to choke her. Then she realized, with horror, that he had seized the Epicyclical Charm and was holding it in his fist. "You wear my descendant's life around your neck," he said. "As once, Rowena wore mine. When I awoke, the first thing I saw was your face, through his eyes. And I saw that he loved you, just as once I had loved her. History repeating itself. I saw Godric, too, through his eyes," Slytherin said, with a snarl. "When she left me for Godric, it destroyed everything that I had worked for, everything I had nearly achieved. I won't let that happen again, my love." "I'm not your love," said Hermione, with desperate fury. "Maybe not yet," said Salazar Slytherin. "But you will be." *** Ginny was sitting in the kitchen listening to the wall clock tick when the door opened and Harry, Ron and Draco walked in, carrying their brooms and looking utterly exhausted. At least, Draco and Ron looked exhausted. Harry looked a degree worse than exhausted, as if he'd been wrung out by some terrible ordeal. Ron and Draco tossed their brooms into the corner; Harry leaned his carefully on the wall next to the door. Ginny watched him from the kitchen, her heart aching with the suppressed desire to run over and put her arms around him; he looked so unhappy. Ron walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Anything?" he said quietly. Ginny shook her head. "No word from her." None of them looked particularly surprised. "Thanks for waiting, Gin," said Harry in a deadly tired voice. "Did you - learn anything?" asked Ginny anxiously. Harry shrugged. "Yes and no." "Is she all right?" The answer to this question was a dead silence. Harry said, "I'm going to go wash up. I'll be right back," turned, and went upstairs. Ginny looked miserably at Ron. "What happened?" Ron sighed. He looked over at Draco, who was leaning against the kitchen wall. "We talked to Krum," he said, and told Ginny exactly what had happened. "I guess we were pretty lucky," he said, after he had finished telling the story. "Nobody caught us, and when I took the spell off Viktor, he seemed fine. Couldn't remember anything he'd told us under the Veritas curse. Couldn't even remember why we were there." "I had to get his autograph," said Draco, trying to sound light. "It was very embarrassing." "Is Harry okay?" asked Ginny, looking up at her brother. She tried to read his eyes, as she had been able to do when she was younger. Right now they said Harry's not all right and I wish you didn't care. "He needs to sleep," said Ginny. "You all need to sleep." "Good luck convincing Harry of that," said Ron. "He's really upset about Hermione, isn't he?" said Ginny. "He's upset about Viktor," said Draco. "He's upset by the thought of what he's capable of when he's pushed." Ron looked at Draco bitterly. "What do you know?" he said. "More than you think," said Draco, with a touch of his old scornful drawl. He shrugged and walked out through the screen door, letting it bang shut behind him. "I'm going to see if Harry's all right," said Ginny, ignoring Ron's expression, and went upstairs. *** Draco stood in the Weasleys' garden, letting the silver moonlight run down over him like milky rain. It was a cool, wet night, and the garden smelled like mint and dirt and rosemary. It was nothing like the gardens at Malfoy Mansion, which always smelled of metal and pepper and blood. He turned and faced south, the direction of his home, and reached into his pocket, realizing in sudden irritation, I don't have my wand. Then he thought: that doesn't matter. Magids his age weren't supposed to perform wandless magic; that was true. Then again, neither were they supposed to sneak away from school in the dead of night for the purpose of putting powerful and illegal curses on famous international athletes. Wandless magic seemed minor in comparison. Sod that stupid rule, he thought, and raised his left hand, holding it straight out before him. The moonlight picked out the vivid silver lightning bolt scar across his palm as if it had been drawn there in liquid mercury. Strange that the hand that Harry chose to cut is the hand that I do magic with. And the same for him. Was that conscious, I wonder? He shrugged off the question and concentrated hard, thinking of the object he wanted, picturing it where it had lain the last time that he had seen it. For a summoning charm to work, it didn't matter how far away the object to be summoned was, but one had to know where it was, and he did: on his father's desk. He pictured his father's study as he had last seen it, building the image in his head, even the smell of it: books and brandy and black magic. He shut his eyes and raised his left hand. "Accio!" *** Ginny found Harry in Percy's old bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, untouched since Percy had last been there with its plain blue sheets and hospital corners. He had taken off his glasses and was sitting with his legs drawn up, his head on his knees. Ginny sat down next to him, feeling the bed sink under her weight. "Harry," she said. "You need to get some sleep." He raised his head slowly. "I'm not tired." She was always startled by how different he looked with his glasses off. Younger, of course, but less gentle somehow; colder, and more capable of hardness. There was a line etched between his eyebrows now, that smoothed itself out as he looked at her, trying to smile. She wondered how many years it would take for that line to become a permanent dent between his eyes that never vanished, whether or not he was smiling. She wondered if she would be there to see it. "Of course you're tired," she said. "You've been up for hours, flown for miles. You need to sleep. You won't be any good at all to Hermione if you fall off your broomstick and drown in the Channel." "I'm not any good to her anyway," said Harry bitterly. "This is all my fault." "It's not your fault!" said Ginny, outraged. "How could it be your fault? It's more my fault than it is yours - I should never have left her alone with Viktor in the Leaky Cauldron -" "No," said Harry, shaking his head. "There's no reason for Wormtail to kidnap her except to get at me. She's only in danger because of what she means to me. Just like Sirius was, and Ron, and everyone else I care about." "Well," said Ginny, trying to sound light, "At least Malfoy's safe." Harry forced a laugh. "I guess so," he said, and reached up to push his hair out of his eyes. "Ginny..." "Please, Harry," she said. "Promise me you'll get some sleep. We can put Malfoy in Charlie's old room and you can stay here. Then we can get started on whatever needs to be done first thing in the morning." Harry hesitated a moment, then nodded. "You're right," he said. "I know you're right." He smiled at her, and her stomach flipped over. "There's just one thing, Gin, if you wouldn't mind; I'd really rather not be by myself right now, so..." Ginny stared at him. "Yes?" she said in a tiny voice. "Could you ask Ron to come up? I don't feel like going downstairs, but I'd really like to talk to him." "Oh," she said. She stood up. "Oh. Of course. I'll - I'll go get him right now." On the first floor landing, she passed Draco, who was carrying a large green book in his arms. She had a sudden, savage urge to kick him in the ankle, but knew it was unjustified and restrained herself. "You're in that bedroom," she said, pointing down the hallway toward Charlie's room, which was next to hers. "There are blankets in the cupboard. And don't ask me to make your bed, because I won't." He looked at her curiously. "What's bothering you?" he asked. "Potteritis again?" He didn't change expression, but she could tell just by looking at him that there was a smirk chasing around inside his tidy blond head, trying to find its way out. "I violently dislike you," she said. "I just thought you should know that." "And I really don't care," said Draco, stepping neatly around her and heading off down the hallway to Charlie's room. Ginny stood for a moment, staring after him. For some reason she couldn't decipher, she now felt even worse than she had before. *** Draco sleeping*** He was standing in a chamber that was somewhere underground - he didn't know how he knew that, but he did. He wore robes of black and green and silver, and boots of black dragon-hide leather. He could tell without looking down that several inches had been added to the bottoms of his shoes to give him extra height. But he could still feel the heat that radiated from the floor burning through his bootsoles. He was not alone down here. They stood around him in a semi-circle. There were seven of them. And Draco recognized them immediately; recognized their long two-fingered hands, their smooth and earless heads. Demons. Only they wore long robes of black and red, and the tallest of them all, the one in the center of the half-circle, carried something in its outstretched hands. A long silver sword whose hilt was set with a multitude of green jewels. "You have come here to make an exchange with us," said the tallest demon. And Draco heard himself speak. His voice was not his own voice, but the voice of a man much older. "Yes, I have." "And do you know what this exchange entails?" "I give you what you want," the Draco-who-was-not-Draco said. "And you give me the sword." "With this sword a man could work miracles," said the demon. "I have no interest in miracles," said the Draco-who-was-not. "I have an interest in power. I have been told such a sword will give me power. Is that the truth?" "There is such a thing as too much power," said the demon. And the dream-Draco laughed. "I don't believe that," he said. "You must at least believe that there is a natural balance to all things," said the demon. "For every profit in one thing, payment in some other thing. You will profit greatly by the use of this sword, but first it must be paid for." And Draco felt his hands - which seemed solid and real, hardly like dream-hands at all - go to his throat, and loosen the pin there, and he drew his cloak back and the shirt that was under it so that his chest was bare. "Take your payment," he said. The demon reached out its spatulated hand, and flexed its long fingers. Then, like a boxer punching his way through a flimsy cardboard wall, the demon plunged its hand into Draco's chest. The agony was immediate and intense and terrible, but it lasted only a moment. Draco screamed, and the demon drew its hand back. It was clutching something in its blood-streaked fingers - something that glowered and flickered weakly like candlelight through a screen. The demon smiled. Its incisors were long and sharp and pointed. "The sword is yours," it said. "Hell is now satisfied." "Malfoy! Malfoy! Wake up!" Someone had him by the shoulder and was shaking him. He twisted away, covering his face with his arms. He was vaguely aware of someone screaming. There were hands tugging at his arms, trying to pull them away from his face. "Wake up!" said the voice again, despairingly, and then, "Malfoy, please!" He opened his eyes. The screaming stopped, and it was suddenly, blessedly quiet. That was me screaming, Draco realized. That was me. It was dark in the bedroom. The only light was silver moonlight pouring through the window: it illuminated the girl leaning over him, her anxious, dark eyes and long, curling hair. In the half-dark, she looked like- "Hermione?" he whispered, only half awake. "No, it's Ginny." He drew his arms away from his face slowly. "Of course," he said. "You wouldn't be her. She calls me by my first name." He blinked and stared at her. "What are you doing in here?" "What am I doing in here?" echoed Ginny irritably. "You were screaming like a banshee, that's what I'm doing in here. I thought someone was murdering you. Look where you are, Malfoy." Draco sat up and looked around him in surprise. He was no longer on the bed but half-lying on the floor, in a welter of tangled bedsheets. He didn't remember falling off the bed, but then he didn't remember screaming either. What he did remember was his dream. He sucked in breath through his teeth, remembering the pain, the demon's hand punching through his chest. The heat. The sword. When Ginny spoke again, her voice was uncertain. "Malfoy..." "What?" "You're bleeding." Startled, he glanced down and saw, on the front of his shirt, just over his heart, a spreading red stain the size of a dinner plate. Draco put his hand to the stain and his fingers came away red. Not old blood, but new. He looked up at Ginny. "Get Harry," he said hoarsely. Ginny scrambled to her feet and headed for the door. Halfway there, Draco called out to her. "Wait!" She turned around. He was kneeling amid the blankets. He had taken his shirt off and was looking down at his chest, which was quite a bit paler than the rest of him in the silver light. It was also completely unmarked; there was no wound there at all. "Never mind," he said. "It looks like I'm all right after all." "Was that...not your blood?" she said, bewildered. He looked up at Ginny, and the moonlight struck cold sparks from his silver eyes. "I don't know. But I think I'm beginning to have an idea. And I'm not liking it much." "Does it have to do with your nightmare?" "Yes," he said, then shook his head. "I mean, no. I mean, I'm not sure it was a nightmare. I think it was a flashback. Or maybe a delusion. Or maybe I had a flashback in the middle of a delusion. Is that possible?" Ginny could feel her eyes widening. "I should go get Harry," she said, but Draco shook his head. "Don't bother Potter," he said. "Just sit here with me for a minute." Ginny hesitated. It was very hard to read Draco's expression. In the darkness, his eyes reflected light like a cat's. Slowly, she walked over and sat down next to him on the blankets. But she didn't want to look at him, because he had his shirt off and it gave her an odd feeling, so she stared fixedly at the nightstand instead, and said the first thing that came into her head. "Does it hurt?" "It did when I was asleep," he said. "It doesn't anymore." He was looking down at his shirt now; the front of which was stained dark crimson. There was blood on his hands as well. Ginny looked at them curiously, noticing something odd. He had nearly the same hands as Harry - the same shape, the same bitten nails, the same long fingers and sharp articulation of bones. She had looked at Harry's hands often enough and with enough attention to have memorized them; she would have known them anywhere. The matching scars only added to the strangeness. Ginny reached out and touched the scar on his left palm. "How did you and Harry get these?" Draco looked at her. "Ron didn't tell you?" She shook her head. Draco went back to looking at his shirt. "Accident with a sharp deck of playing cards," he said. "We don't like to talk about it. Too painful." Ginny made a face. "Do you know what the thing I hate about you is, Malfoy?" He glanced up at grinned. "I am shocked," he said. "Shocked that there is only one thing you hate about me. I would have thought you had a list of grievances, possibly numbered." Ginny suddenly felt her face twitch into a smile, and was horrified. Why was she smiling at Draco Malfoy? This was bad. It suddenly occurred to her how this might look to Ron if he came in suddenly - she was kneeling on the floor with a shirtless Draco Malfoy amid a tangle of sheets and blankets, and they were smiling at each other as if they were old friends. "I'm getting Harry," she said hastily, and got to her feet, smoothing her nightdress down. "Don't," he said. "It's not that important." "You're bleeding phantom blood," said Ginny. "I think this is worth waking Harry up for." "Forget it," said Draco, and his tone brooked no argument. "Just get me another shirt, will you?" "A shirt?" echoed Ginny, in disbelief. "A shirt. You've got a lot of brothers, there must be plenty of clothes in this house." Ginny tightened her lips into a narrow line, stalked out of the room, and returned with an object which she tossed into Draco's lap. It was one of Mrs. Weasley's famous sweaters. "Pink," he said morosely, glaring at it. "I hate pink." "Good night, Malfoy," said Ginny, and shut the door behind her. *** Ginny and Ron were already awake when Harry came down to breakfast the next morning. He was a wearing one of the green sweaters that Mrs. Weasley had made for him years ago; it was too small on him now and the sleeves rode up over his thin wrists. He flopped down into the chair next to Ginny, picked up a spoon, and poked listlessly at the bowl of oatmeal that she slid across the table to him. Ron looked up briefly and nodded; he was busy reading the Daily Prophet. "Any news?" asked Harry. "Dementors are still missing," said Ron, around a mouthful of toast. "There were some reports of them being spotted near a wizarding town to the south, but those were discredited." He snorted. "By Percy. It's always Percy, isn't it?" Ginny shuddered. "Imagine seeing dementors right in your own town," she said. "In your own front garden..." They all looked anxiously out the window. "Ginny, don't," said Ron, irritably. But Ginny had thought of something else she wanted to talk about. "Harry," she said. "There's something wrong with Malfoy." Ron and Harry glanced at her curiously. She was buttering a piece of toast and looking determined. "Something more than what's usually wrong with him?" said Harry. "Yes," said Ginny firmly. "Last night he was screaming so loudly in his sleep that it woke me up. I've never heard anyone scream like that before. And then, when I went into his bedroom, he was lying on the floor and there was blood all over his shirt." "He was bleeding?" said Harry. "You went into his bedroom?" said Ron, looking suddenly alarmed. "Yes, and yes," said Ginny. "But the bedroom part is not the point of the story. The screaming and the blood, that would be the point of the story." She shuddered. "I do know what Dark magic feels like," she said, more quietly. "And it's all over him." "Did you stay in the bedroom with him?" asked Ron. "Ron, are you listening to me at all?" snapped Ginny. "You did, didn't you?" said Ron, looking horrified. "Ginny! Malfoy?" "I kind of like the sound of that," said his sister, with a sadistic grin. "Ginny Malfoy." "Ginny," spluttered Ron. "I want you to tell me right now - promise me - you won't -you wouldn't - not with Malfoy!" Ginny took a bite of toast and shrugged. "Ours is a forbidden love," she said. "Ginny, stop winding Ron up," said Harry, although he was hiding a smile. "Ron, quit being a twit. I'm sure Ginny didn't stay in the room with Malfoy any longer than she had to. Gin, what do you mean there's Dark Magic all over him?" Ginny frowned. "It's just a feeling," she said. "Ever since we were in the Chamber of Secrets, I get this cold sort of feeling whenever I'm around Dark magic. I got it from Hermione in Diagon Alley just after she saw Viktor. And I get it from Malfoy, too." "Well, that's not too surprising," said Ron. "I mean, he's been around Dark magic his whole life. He's a walking Knockturn Alley." "Maybe," said Harry, who was biting on one knuckle, something he did when he was thinking. 'D'you think he's dangerous?" asked Ron, sounding hopeful. Somewhat unwillingly, Harry thought of the sword, the Talisman of Purest Evil. And of the surge of cold that had come from Draco's hand when they had performed the Veritas curse on Krum. "I don't think so," he said. "Still," said Ron, reaching for the plate of toast, "there's a definite possibility that he's a vicious, cold-blooded -" Ginny squeaked. Ron glanced up and saw Draco standing in the doorway, wearing Mrs. Weasleys' fuzzy pink sweater and carrying a large green book. "Oh. Um...piece of toast?" said Ron lamely, offering the plate to Draco. "I've been called a lot of things in my life," said Draco, looking at the plate. "But never a vicious, cold-blooded piece of toast." Ron had the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry, Malfoy," he muttered. "But Ginny-" "Told you about last night," said Draco, looking at Ginny with a certain coldness. Ginny looked right back. He had been right about pink, thought Ginny. It was not his color. It went badly with his light coloring and silvery hair, making him resemble nothing so much as an iced pink birthday cake. "I had a nightmare," he said. "So what?" "I have nightmares all the time," said Harry. "I don't usually wake up covered in blood." "Covered is kind of strong," said Draco, sitting down at the table. "More like...splattered." "Oh, right," said Ron with heavy sarcasm, "Never mind then, it isn't weird at all." "Exactly," said Draco, ignoring Ron's look of immense irritation, and turned to Harry. "Potter," he said. "I've had an idea." He waved his hand at Ron, who looked as if he was about to say something. "And no sarcastic comments, please." "Okay," said Harry. "What?" "The Epicyclical Charm," said Draco. "My Epicyclical Charm. It's never been tested, but theoretically, wherever I am in the world, Hermione can find me by using it. I know she could find me wherever I was at Hogwarts, she used it a couple of times." "But that's only useful if she's trying to find you," said Harry. "Not the other way around." "If there's only one Epicyclical Charm, that's true," said Draco. He raised the green book he was holding, the object he had Summoned to himself the night before. It was his father's copy of Epicyclical Elaborations of Sorcery. "But if we make another Charm, the two Charms can find each other." Harry, Ron and Ginny stared at him. "Another Epicyclical Charm?" said Harry faintly. "But isn't that really complicated and dangerous?" "Not really," said Draco. "I'm a little too old for it to be very effective, but it should be effective enough for this. And I'll be giving a part of myself willingly, so that will help." "Does that mean we get to knock out one of your teeth?" asked Ron, with interest. "I was thinking of a lock of hair," said Draco, "and I'd like to see you try it, Weasley." "Ahem," said Harry. "Do we have what we need for the spell?" "Not everything," Draco hedged. "Not yet. We need some mugwort, some wolfsbane, and an Orb of Thessala." "A what of what?" said Ginny. "An Orb of Thessala," said Draco. "It's used in Transfiguration and Transformation spells. It has to do with soul transference. It's not hard to use, just hard to come by. I assume my dad must have had one, but I've no idea where he might have kept it." "So where are we going to get one?" said Harry. "Is this the sort of thing you can just buy in Diagon Alley?" "Actually, no," said Draco. "But it's just the sort of thing our Transformations teacher would have in his office." "Lupin," said Harry. "He'd never let us borrow something like that." "True," Draco agreed. "Which is why we're going to have to break in and take it. We have to go back to school anyway, and while we're there -" Harry blinked. "We have to go back to school?" "Of course," said Draco, as if this should be obvious. "We have to get my sword." Harry pushed his chair back from the table with a screech. "No way," he said flatly. "We are not bringing that thing with us." Draco's gray eyes spat angry sparks. "Why not?" "Because," said Harry, as if this should be obvious. "It's evil. It's an evil thing and I don't want it near me." "It's a very powerful weapon," said Draco. "It has powers we can't even imagine." "Yeah," agreed Harry. "Because they're really, really horrible." "You don't know that," said Draco firmly. "Even Lupin doesn't know that. He said he had to finish testing it. It's a Magid blade," Draco added, "and I'm a Magid and it belonged to my ancestors, it's been in my family for generations, and I want it." Harry suddenly heard Hermione's voice in his head, remembering something she had said to him two weeks ago--was it only two weeks? Didn't Dumbledore tell you that people want what's worst for them? Yes, Harry had replied. But not everyone. "Malfoy..." he began. But Draco had stood up from the table and was glaring at all of them, flushed with anger. "Look," he said. "I don't know what we're up against, and neither do you. But if what we've seen so far is any indication, we're dealing with some serious, serious Dark magic. This sword is a gift, Potter. It can kill anything. The Dark Lord himself could be destroyed by it. Lupin as much as said so." Now Harry looked angry. "Don't you remember the book?" he snapped. "You can bear that sword, but at a price." "I'm a Malfoy," said Draco. "We don't ask about prices." He grinned without much mirth. "I can afford it." "I don't think you can," said Harry. Ginny looked from one of them to the other. Draco and Harry were staring at each other, Draco with fiery red spots of anger on his cheeks and Harry very pale. "What if you're not the one who pays the price, Malfoy?" said Harry in a deadly voice. "What if it turns out to be someone else? What if it turns out to be -" He almost said "Hermione," but he didn't want to be like Draco, didn't want to invoke Hermione's name as a whip to beat his opponent with. "-me?" he finished. Draco's eyes were glittering. "I'll take that chance," he said. This time it was Ron who spoke. "You're a bastard, Malfoy," he said flatly. Draco didn't look at him, was still looking only at Harry. " What if she's in danger a A/N: My apologies that this chapter is so very long. It's a transitional chapter, and none of the others (this is part 4 out of 10) will be nearly this massive. I also should say that I paid no attention whatsoever to geography or for that matter to the flora and fauna of the British Isles while writing this. I promise to be better about research in the future. I'm dedicating this chapter to Lori, for being nice enough to share her list with me. ************************************************ Draco Sinister Part 4: Dementors, Demons, and Moral Dilemmas As they flew, Draco discovered that the Epicyclical Charm worked a bit like a compass. Every twenty miles or so he would have to pause and reattune it, and the others would stop and watch, hovering in midair. Because he was the navigator, he flew ahead, with the others following him: Harry second, then Ginny and Ron behind. He was actually quite enjoying the flying. They had been flying low over a thickly wooded area for several hours, just skimming the tops of the trees, and the pull coming from the Epicyclical Charm had been growing stronger and stronger. When, after another hour, he paused and touched the Charm again, images came to him in a surge like a tidal wave: the forest, the burned castle, the round tower. And Hermione. He felt almost sure that the forest in the visions was the same forest they were flying over now. He looked over at Harry, Ron and Ginny, who were hovering a little ways away, and felt just a bit smug. There's no way they could do this without me. Not even the great Harry Potter. He was about to call out to them that he was sure they were getting close, when a flicker of movement below him caught his eye and he glanced down. And stared in surprise. It was difficult to see through the thick canopy of interwoven branches, but Draco thought he saw a line of dark figures, like a column of ants, wending their way between the trees. Were they people? It looked like much too orderly a column for animals -- but it was hard to tell. Draco leaned forward, trying to get a better look. And froze, as a searing wave of cold suddenly washed over him. He jerked upright, but the cold didn't vanish -- it was cold like no cold he had ever experienced, cold that burned and slashed at his insides like knives. Suddenly terrified, he tried to yell out for Harry, but he couldn't hear his own voice over the voices that suddenly began shouting in his head. You're not my son. That was his father speaking, of course it was his father. I am still young; I can have other children. Draco clutched at his broom. I don't care, he said stubbornly to his father, I don't care, but Lucius Malfoy's voice was suddenly swept aside by a rising and howling tide of other voices, voices he didn't know. Voices screaming in pain, choked off in blood, voices he remembered from his dreams, crying out in agony...and a man's voice, rising above them all, hoarse and angry, You lied to me! You lied to me! I never lied to you! A woman's voice, shouting her reply: You just believed it because it was what you wanted to believe! You'll be sorry you ever said that. Don't think I won't hurt you. Nobody can hurt you like I can. No! NO! The unknown woman was screaming now. What have you done to him? Where is he? Salazar, what have you done? Draco covered his ears, but the screaming went on inside his head, and worse than the screaming was the terror, pure terror washing over him like a thick black fog. Icy fingers of cold gripped him, prying his hands from the handle of his broomstick, pushing him over backwards. He saw the world turn upside down, the sky at his feet, and then, as he fell, everything went black. *** "Harry? Harry! Everything all right?" Harry glanced up to see Ron looking at him with concern. "I think so," said Harry, aware that he probably looked pale and unhappy. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear there were dementors around." He slowed his broom to a halt, put his hands up to his face, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Ron paused beside him, and a moment later, so did Ginny. Harry shuddered. "I feel so - cold," he said. Ron shook his head. "I don't feel anything." "Neither do I," chipped in Ginny. Harry put his glasses back on. "It's probably -" He broke off, looking surprised. "Malfoy!" he called. "You all right?" Both Ron and Ginny turned to follow Harry's gaze, just in time to see Draco, who was bent double over his Firebolt as if he were about to be sick, let go of his broomstick and topple sideways. As they watched in horror, he tumbled downwards, vanishing into the treetops, his broom hurtling after him. Ginny gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, and spun to look at Harry - but Harry was already gone. Pointing his broomstick directly at the ground as if he were diving into the Wronski Feint, he shot downwards through the trees, vanishing from sight. Without another thought, Ginny made as if to dive after him, but Ron clamped a hand on her wrist. "Gin, no-" "Ron, we've got to go after them-" "Yes," he said patiently, "but neither of us is Harry, we can't fly like Harry. You'll get yourself killed." With his hand still gripping her arm, he tilted his broom downward, and she followed. She soon saw what he meant. The trees were so thickly interwoven here that it necessitated some tricky flying to keep from crashing or getting tangled in the branches. She remembered the speed at which Harry had dived down, and shuddered. Please let him be all right, she prayed. And Draco. Let him be all right, too. *** "Let me tell you a story," Salazar Slytherin said. Hermione looked at his face as he stared fixedly at the tapestry of the Hogwarts Four hanging on the wall. She couldn't tell if he was looking at Rowena or Godric, or even at the depiction of himself. His jaw was set. "Rowena," he said. Not knowing if he was talking to her, Hermione didn't move. "We were children together," he said. "I knew her from the moment she was born. I saw her in her cradle. I was five years old. I knew her and loved her every moment of her life. I watched her as she grew in power and in wisdom. I had little magical skill myself, to speak of. Until I was fifteen years old, I was the shame of my family. It was then that I told Rowena that I loved her. And she told me she loved me as well." Slytherin began to pace. "It unlocked something inside me. I discovered that not only was I capable of magic, I was in fact a Magid, of unmatched power and skill. I could speak the language of beasts and animals, I could control the weather, I could perform spells without a wand. But only as long as I was with Rowena." He glanced at Hermione, his eyes fierce and sad, and she felt again the same flicker of pity for him that she had felt earlier. They were children together; they loved each other as children. Like Harry and me. But he's nothing like Harry. "She was my Source," he said. "You might not know what that is. It is magic at its most mysterious. Without Rowena, I was more powerless than an infant. With Rowena by my side, I could have mastered the world." "But she didn't want you to master the world," said Hermione slowly. "Did she?" "I did everything she asked me to do," said Slytherin hoarsely. "I agreed to start the school she wanted me to start with her. I let her bring in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff as founders, although they were both fools. I did what I could to make myself stronger..." He made a noise like a hiss. "I recruited young wizards of strength and ambition, and among them I looked for one who might be a Source for me, as Rowena was. But there was never anyone, never anyone but her. And the more I needed her, the more she drew away from me. I began to see how she looked at Godric." He stopped pacing and stared at her with furious eyes. "She looked at him as, when we were children, she had looked at me. Filthy Muggle-born fool that he was, I knew why she had turned to him. It was because I was weak, because without her, I could not perform the simplest Summoning charm." Hermione very much doubted that this was why Rowena had stopped loving Slytherin, if indeed she had, but she kept her mouth shut. "As she withdrew her love from me, so did my strength ebb, and with it, my desperation grew. I could not bear to be weak; that she should see me as weak was intolerable to me. I did everything -- everything I could -- to make myself stronger --" "You did Dark magic," said Hermione slowly. "I called upon the powers of hell," said Slytherin. "I resolved that I would no longer rely upon her, that I would strengthen my power, so that I might face Godric without her by my side and she might know that I was powerful in my own right. I called upon the powers of hell and they gave me back what she had taken away from me when she left me for Godric." "She stopped loving you because you were doing Dark magic, not because of Godric!" snapped Hermione. "She should have loved me anyway!" he cried in his hoarse, buzzing voice. "As I would have loved her, regardless of anything she might have done!" Shaken by the fury in his face and voice, Hermione took a step backwards. "With the power I had gained, I was invincible," Slytherin went on slowly. "I determined to show her that I had become the greatest wizard in the world. I created armies of monsters and the armies of men withered before them. I mastered the lightning and the thunder; I could have cracked the earth in half, had I so chosen. But I would not destroy a world that had her in it. I still loved her, even after all she had done to me. Eventually, I went to find her, to show her what I had made of myself and see her pride in me. But she was with Godric. She no longer loved me. She had chosen Godric over me. She told me to get out and to leave them alone." Hermione looked at his face, followed his gaze to the tapestry, and suddenly knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, what must have happened. "You killed him," she said, in a voice that squeaked. "Of course I killed him." Hermione winced, not least because in her mind, Godric Gryffindor looked more than a little like Harry. "She must have hated you," she said savagely, and then, with an indrawn breath, "Or did you kill her, too?" "I did not kill her," said Slytherin, turning away from the tapestry. "In the end, I could not take her life, even after all she had taken from me. I could not kill her, and yet my own life meant nothing to me. I went into seclusion, performed difficult and dangerous magics. Magics that ensured I would rise again, rise when there was another Rowena in the world, another Source to feed my power..." "I'm not Rowena," said Hermione in a trembling voice. "She died a thousand years ago, so did Godric, and so should you have! You should never have come back!" Slytherin's dark and empty eyes rested on her for a moment. It almost looked as though he might smile. "But I came back for you," he said. "Your power went away when Rowena stopped loving you," said Hermione desperately. "So the Source has to be willing." "That's true," said Slytherin. "Well, I'm not willing, and nothing you can do can make me willing. Even if you torture me -" "Crude and unnecessary," said Slytherin. "And ineffective. It might break you, but it would not make you willing. No. When you become my Source, it will be out of love." "Love?" echoed Hermione, nearly gagging. "That's just - disgusting -" Now he did smile. "You are so much like her," he said. "And when I am done with you, you will be her. A better Rowena than ever I had, more constant and more true." He raised his head and called out, suddenly, looking past her, "Wormtail!" In seconds, Wormtail was at his side, grinning at Hermione, his beady eyes sparkling. "Is it time, Master?" "Almost," said Slytherin. "Take her back to the room and lock her in. Very soon," he said. "Very soon it will be time." *** Flying almost entirely by instinct, Harry shot downward, somehow -miraculously - managing to avoid impaling himself violently on a branch or crashing headfirst into a tree. He broke through the last of the branches, saw the ground careening up to meet him, and pulled up so sharply on his Firebolt that he toppled off, a foot from the ground, the broomstick clattering to the earth next to him. He was up on his feet in seconds, looking around. He was standing in a small clearing between tall trees. It was nearly dark down here, the dimness pierced only by a few shafts of dusty light filtering down through gaps in the leaves, but Harry's sharp Seeker's eyes immediately picked out Draco's broken broomstick, lying snapped in half in the center of the clearing. And several feet beyond it, a dark huddled shape on the ground. Harry felt something oddly like panic. Maybe it was panic. He forced his feet to move, half-sprinting across the clearing towards Draco's crumpled form. As he got closer, he saw that the other boy was lying on his back, and for a moment, as he dropped down next to him and saw that his eyes were open, he was quite sure that Draco was dead. Then the gray eyes flicked sideways towards him, and with a funny hitching breath, Draco said, 'Lo, Potter." "Malfoy - you're all right?" "Wind knocked out of me," said Draco. He started to lift himself up on his elbows and winced. "Oh. And my leg's broken." "Broken? Are you sure? Does it hurt?" said Harry, feeling that he sounded like a worried grandmother, but unable to help it. Draco shot him a look. "Well, it stung a bit at first," he said. "Fortunately that went away when the searing pain kicked in." He really makes it difficult to feel sorry for him, thought Harry irritably. Then again, maybe that was the point. "I heard it snap," added Draco, with a shudder. "It sounded like a broomstick breaking." "Speaking of which," said Harry. "Your broomstick's broken." Draco looked at him with an expression of complete and utter horror. "It's not that bad," said Harry quickly. "You can share with one of us until we-" "Potter," said Draco in a strangled voice. He had gone the grayish color of unfired clay. "Look behind you." Harry turned. And froze. They were still quite a distance away, on the far side of the clearing. But there was no mistaking what they were, twenty or thirty dark-robed, dark-hooded creatures, twelve feet tall, trickling like slow venom out of the gaps between the trees and into the clearing. Coming closer. Harry felt his heart turn over. Dementors. Draco made a choked sort of noise. Harry whipped around and saw that he had clamped both his hands over his face and was jerking and twitching like a fish on the end of a line. "Malfoy?" said Harry, in wonder and horror, and then the first wave of cold hit him, nearly knocking him over and into Draco. He sucked in air, trying to clear the gray fog rising in his brain, and struggled to his feet, turning, facing the oncoming dementors, trying not to stagger in the face of the wall of freezing cold they drove before them like an iceberg. Harry was vaguely aware of Draco, still making strangled noises behind him, as he reached for his wand with fingers that felt like a bunch of numb twigs tied to his wrist. The dementors were halfway across the clearing now, moving towards him like a steady tide of poisoned water. That they were so silent as they moved only added to Harry's sense of being trapped in a nightmare. He attempted to steady his wand hand, which was shaking violently. Harry had never felt less able to summon up a happy memory than he did right now. He hadn't conjured a Patronus since his third year, and the happy memories that had served him then -- Quidditch matches and House Cup victories -- suddenly seemed very small and silly. He cast his mind desperately back - and thought of course of Hermione, Hermione telling him she loved him, only right now that caused him more pain than anything else. He forced his mind away from memories of rain and mirrors and Hermione kissing him, and thought suddenly of standing by the lake at school, holding Sirius' letter in his hand and watching Hermione and Draco laughing. And remembered that their laughter had been so infectious that he had laughed himself, especially at Hermione, who laughed often enough, but rarely like that - rarely so hard that she had to sit down, rarely with such bright and uncontrollable happiness. He felt his mouth twitch into a smile as he remembered how she had pulled him down next to her and buried her face in his shoulder, still laughing. He raised his wand, and heard his own voice as if it came from far away. "Expecto Patronum!" His wand jerked in his hand and the familiar silver-white light burst from its tip. Shaking with relief, Harry fell to his knees as the silver light formed itself into the shape of a stag with antlers like forked lightning, which lunged silently towards the dementors. In the dim light the silver stag shone like a new moon, and the dementors withered back before its light, almost seeming to evaporate as they retreated into the shadow of the trees. The stag darted after them, turning at the edge of the clearing to look back around at Harry - Harry raised his hand in a weak salute - and it vanished, plunging into the forest in pursuit. Still on his knees, Harry turned and looked at Draco, who had stopped twitching but still had his hands clamped over his face. "They're gone," he said. "Potter," said Draco, not taking his hands away from his face, "The sword-" "What?" "Take it off me-" Harry reached out and grabbed the hilt of the sword, which Draco had stuck through his belt (and had miraculously failed to impale himself on while falling), and nearly yelled. It was freezing cold to the touch, like ice. He gritted his teeth and closed his hand around the hilt, pulling it away from Draco. He felt the cold that radiated from it with the force of frozen nails being driven into his veins, and yet as he lifted it in his hand he felt suddenly - powerful. A small, cold voice spoke in the back of his head. Harry Potter? The sword was no longer cold. It had assumed the temperature of his skin. It seemed made of his own flesh, only harder, and more smooth. Harry, said the voice in his head, again. Then it said other things. Harry dropped the sword and jumped back as if it had burned him. "Harry!" It was Ron's voice. Harry looked up and saw Ron and Ginny coming towards them, looking pale and worried. They were both covered in leaves and twigs were caught in Ginny's hair - they must have gotten stuck in the woods. Both of them were both carrying their broomsticks. "Harry -- was that --?" "Patronus spell," said Harry briefly. "Dementors." Ron looked gray. "We have to get out of here," he said. "Malfoy's leg's broken," said Harry in the same short tone. Ron dropped his broomstick and looked from Harry to Draco. Then he turned to Ginny. "Can you fix it?" She shook her head. "I did cuts and bruises last year-but bones, no. I don't want to risk it. If I made a mistake, I might end up giving him two bones in his leg instead of one, or making them bendy, or -" "Removing them entirely," said Harry, thinking of Lockhart. "Right," said Ginny. "So that would be a no," said Ron. "Okay. Harry. Come here. I need to talk to you for a minute." Harry followed Ron a short distance away and looked at him inquiringly. Ron had his resolute face on, which was sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. Harry admired Ron's determination, but it could be hard to get through to him when he had his mind set on something. "You're all right?" said Ron, looking at Harry searchingly. "The dementors and everything...you're okay?" "I'm fine," said Harry. To his surprise, this was the truth. "They affected Malfoy a lot more than they affected me." "Which is weird," said Ron. "I agree," said Harry. "But I'm not sure it means anything. Scratch that. It means something, but I don't know what." "Well, you're going to get some time to find out," said Ron. "Meaning?" "Meaning I think Ginny and I should go find some help, and you should stay here with Malfoy. We're not leaving him alone in the woods with a broken leg, much as I dislike him, and I'm certainly not leaving him alone here with Ginny while you and I go off-" "Even with a broken leg?" grinned Harry. "He couldn't catch her if she ran." "What if she doesn't run?" "You're paranoid," said Harry. In response, Ron's eyes flicked past him. Harry turned, and saw Draco propped up against a tree trunk, Ginny bending over him, looking solicitous. "Means nothing," said Harry. "I'm not letting her hang around here playing nursemaid to Malfoy. Because ... well, because-" "Because playing nursemaid leads to playing naughty stewardess?" "Harry," said Ron, indignantly. Harry threw up his hands. "You are not sane on this topic." Ron shrugged. "I was brought up to hate the name of Malfoy and to look after my little sister. So tell me, what do you think I should do?" *** "Does that hurt now?" asked Ginny anxiously, pushing a stray tendril of hair out of her eyes. She had been helping Draco sit up against a tree trunk. His broken leg lay stretched out stiffly in front of him and he held Slytherin's sword across his lap. "Yes, it hurts," said Draco irritably. "My leg's broken. Of course it hurts. Doesn't anyone know any pain-killing charms? What's wrong with you people?" "Do you know any?" said Ginny sharply. "No," said Draco without a trace of embarrassment. "God, you're annoying, even with a broken leg," she said, but she said it without rancor. "Look, just sit back, will you?" She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back gently so that he was leaning against the tree trunk. "Thanks," he said, and shut his eyes. "No problem," said Ginny softly, looking at him. In a way, she was glad he had his eyes shut, because it meant she could look at him without having to look away. He was pale, probably from pain, making the livid cuts where the branches had torn at his face stand out more clearly against his skin. So did his eyelashes, which were long and dark enough to make Lavender Brown desperately jealous. "Don't," he said, without opening his eyes. "Don't what?" said Ginny, shrinking back guiltily. "Look at me. It makes me nervous." He opened his eyes and studied her expression for a moment, then shut them again as if the sight of her pained him, and said flatly, "Forget it. It won't work." Ginny was floored. "What won't work?" He sighed. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "Same thing you were thinking last night. 'Hey, look at Malfoy, all cute and helpless and kinda nice. He's not mean; he's just wounded and bitter. All he needs is love and he'll be fixed right up.' Well, guess what?" he said, unmoved by her horrified expression. "I'm not nice. And I don't need love and I don't want to be fixed. Especially not by you." "I never," spluttered Ginny, lost for words. "I certainly don't--" "Good," said Draco. "Put it out of your mind. Because if you want a nice boyfriend, you'd be better off with the one you've got now. Imaginary Harry Potter." Ginny was so furious, she wanted to hit him. But he has a broken leg, she told herself. You can't hit someone with a broken leg. She wanted to say something nasty and cutting, something really vicious. She wanted to tell him no wonder your father didn't want you, or Imaginary Harry Potter's better than actual Draco Malfoy any day, just ask Hermione. But she couldn't. Instead, she just said, as evenly as she could, "Malfoy, have you ever even heard of tact?" He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was alarmed to see how dilated his pupils were, whether from shock or pain she wasn't sure. His irises looked black, ringed with only the thinnest band of silver. "Tact is just lying for grown-ups," he said in a level tone. "Is that one of your father's famous sayings?" "No," he said. "I made that one up myself." *** "Bagpipes," said Sirius firmly. Narcissa shook her head, not looking up from the bridal magazine she was reading. "No bagpipes," she said, reached for a pillow, and put it behind her head. She was sitting up on the bed in their hotel room, surrounded by magazine clippings, books, and pieces of paper on which she had scrawled possible wedding invitation designs. "I'm Scottish," said Sirius. "I want to have a Scottish wedding." Narcissa's mouth twitched into a smile, but she still didn't look up. "I told you that you could wear a skirt if you wanted," she began. "Kilt," interrupted Sirius, but she ignored him. "And frankly, I don't care if you wear suspenders and high heels to go with it. And I told you we could serve haggis, and if you want to spend all afternoon tossing the caber in the back yard, that's fine too. But I cannot subject my friends and loved ones to bagpipe music. Think what Draco would say." "Think what he'll say when you tell him he has to wear that suit you picked out." "That suit is charming," said Narcissa, but she was definitely smiling now. She looked up and grinned at him, and he smiled back at her. Like her son's, Narcissa's hair bleached easily in the sun, and now hung in long salt-white ringlets down her back. She looked like she had when they were at school together, he thought. And she did look a great deal like Draco, only the curves of her face were more rounded than his, her chin not as pointy, but the silver-gray eyes that tilted at the edges were the same. "He'll hate it," said Sirius, positively. "You don't know that." "I do know that." Narcissa rolled her eyes. "You must overcome this delusion that Draco is an exact copy of you when you were his age, Sirius," she said. "I agree you would have hated that suit, but Draco likes clothes, he always has, and -" "And I'll bet you fifty galleons he sets that suit on fire before he agrees to wear it." Narcissa suddenly become very interested in her magazine. "Don't want to bet me, do you?" grinned Sirius. "How about, if I win the bet, I get to have bagpipes?" "No bagpipes," said Narcissa in a muffled voice. "There will be bagpipes, or there will be bloodshed," said Sirius. "Then it'll be a lot like my last wedding," said Narcissa with an evil grin. When she smiled like that, Sirius thought, she really did look like her son. "Er," said a voice - neither Narcissa's nor Sirius' - from the corner of the room, and both Sirius and Narcissa jumped. "I'm sorry to intrude, but -" Sirius leaped to his feet, staring at the fireplace. "Remus?" "I'm sorry," repeated Lupin, whose head and shoulders were visible in the ornamental fireplace in the corner of the room. He looked extremely unhappy. "I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important." His eyes flicked over to the bed. "Sorry, Narcissa." She pushed the magazines away and looked anxiously from Lupin to Sirius. "Is everything all right?" "Harry," said Sirius, dropping down on his knees next to the fireplace. "Has something happened to Harry?" "He's gone," said Lupin heavily, and felt even guiltier than he already had as the color drained out of Sirius' face. "Gone?" "He's gone, his broomstick's gone. My office is destroyed, and the sword I was telling you about - that's gone, too." "Draco," said Narcissa quickly. "Have you asked him where Harry is?" "I can't," said Lupin. "He's gone, too." Narcissa went as white as Sirius had. "So they're together," said Sirius. "Are you sure they destroyed your office?" "Positive," said Lupin. "Remember that snow globe you gave me, with the redheaded nymph in it? Well, she saw them come in. They took some implements of mine - an Orb of Thessala, some other things. And they took the sword." He winced. "They smashed the case I put it in. It was adamantine. I've no idea how they did that. I couldn't have done it." "They're Magids," said Sirius hoarsely. "They're children," said Narcissa, standing up. "They took the sword - what does that mean? Will it hurt them?" "I honestly don't know," said Lupin. "I've been searching all day in my books for some mention, some idea what might happen. I can't find anything but vaguely worded prophecies." He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, and Sirius saw that his fingers were grained with ink. "But if you're asking me whether it might hurt them, the answer is yes. Yes, they might well be in danger." "We're coming home," said Sirius. "Right now." Lupin's shoulders sagged with relief. "Thanks, Padfoot." "Thanks has nothing to do with it," said Sirius, looking anxiously at Lupin. "This is Harry we're talking about. My responsibility. And Draco. My responsibility too. I should have paid more attention to what you said last time we talked, about them being in worse trouble than we could possibly imagine." "I really didn't think this would happen," said Lupin, looking defeated. "I've got no idea what I'm going to tell Dumbledore, I don't know if even he knows what the possibilities are--" Sirius looked like something had just occurred to him. "Remus," he interrupted. "How long has it been since you've been back to the Forbidden Forest?" "The - the Forest?" said Lupin blankly. "God. Ages." "If I tell you where to go, could you - could you go there for me and meet someone I think could help us?" "Go to the Forbidden Forest and meet someone for you?" Lupin repeated, looking bewildered. "Would I ask you if it wasn't important?" "Yes," said Lupin, firmly. "Moony..." "All right, all right," said Lupin. "What do you want me to do?" *** "Stop that," said Harry irritably. "It's extremely annoying." He glared over at Draco, who made a face back at him. In the two hours since Ron and Ginny had been gone, Draco had discovered that if he held out his hand, palm up, towards Slytherin's sword, it would leap off the ground and into his grasp. This had struck him as such a neat trick that he kept tossing the sword several feet away, making it jump towards him, and then repeating the process. It was giving Harry a headache. On the other hand, Harry thought, with a twinge of guilt, the pain of having a broken leg must have been awful, and so far Draco hadn't complained. "Malfoy," he said. Draco looked up. "What?" "When the dementors get near you, what do you hear?" Draco looked at him narrowly. "A cappella singing," he said finally. "I hate a cappella singing." "Very funny. What do you really hear?" Draco was unable to repress a very small shudder. "Horrible things," he said. "Well, if you quit flinging that sword around, I'll teach you how to get rid of them." Draco hesitated for a moment, then laid the sword down carefully next to him. He looked over at Harry, who got up from where he was sitting, came over, and sat down next to Draco, trying to remember exactly how it was that Lupin had explained the Patronus spell to him three years ago. "Okay," said Harry. "First you've got to think of a happy memory." Draco blinked. "A what?" "A happy memory. It's important. The happiest memory you can think of, and you have to really concentrate on it." Draco shut his eyes and thought. And thought. A happy memory. When had he been happy? Not with his parents, certainly. Not at school. He thought of the wardrobe back at Malfoy Mansion, of sitting there with Hermione, eating Chocolate Frogs and kissing. He thought of the night that he had prevented his father from killing Harry, how afterward he had lain in the grass with Harry and Sirius and Hermione sitting around him, and Hermione had told him that he had been amazing and brave. But these memories were colored now by the knowledge that she didn't, in fact, love him, and although he knew that and accepted it, probing the memories too much still set off small agonies inside him, like the pain-warnings of a broken tooth. He opened his silver eyes and looked at Harry. "I haven't got one," he said. Harry looked surprised. "What do you mean?" "Just what I said," said Draco. "I haven't got a happy memory." He shrugged. "Don't make a big deal about it, Potter." Harry was stunned. "Surely there must be something." "Well, there was that time Slytherin won the House Cup my first year. Oh wait, you came along and ruined that one, didn't you? And we've never won a match against you, so that won't work either. What can I say? You've screwed up every happy memory I might ever have had." Draco had shut his eyes again. The invisible presence of Hermione sat between them, unmentioned. And for the first time in his life, Harry felt a twinge of guilt for having succeeded somewhere that Draco had failed. "Come on, Malfoy," he said hesitantly, "I mean, you must have won something. A contest. Anything." "Well, there was that time my mum entered me into the Handsomest Boy in Chipping Sodbury contest when I was seven, and I had to wear this outfit she made, and I've suddenly realized that no power on this earth is going to get me to tell you the rest of that story, so never mind. No, Potter, I haven't won any contests." Draco shifted his back against the rough bark of the tree. "Guess you'll have to think of some other spell." "There is no other spell," said Harry, casting about in his mind for some solution. "Malfoy..." he said slowly. "How's your imagination?" "My what?" "Your imagination. Can you imagine a happy memory? Make something up? A fantasy." "One of those things where I'm sitting on top of a pyramid wearing sun-god robes and being pampered by half-naked temple virgins?" "If that makes you happy," said Harry, looking dubious. "May I remind you that we're going for happy here, Malfoy, not, er..." "Right," said Draco, opening his eyes and grinning. "Happy. Okay." He screwed his eyes shut again, and concentrated. Harry watched the moonlight playing over Draco's face, making dark semicircles under his eyes, printing the shadow of leaves against his pale skin, and thought, he's going to be my brother. My brother. He willed it to seem real to him, but it didn't. "Okay," said Draco, opening his eyes. "Got one." "Yeah?" said Harry curiously. "What is it?" "If I told you it involved Hermione, a feather boa, and the theme music from 'A Summer Place,' would you be angry?" "Yes," said Harry. "So don't ask," said Draco. He struggled to sit up straighter and without thinking, Harry held out his hand to assist him. Also without thinking, Draco took it, and let Harry help him into a sitting position. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready. Let's try the spell." *** *** They practiced the Patronus spell for over an hour, until Draco could conjure up his 'happy memory' so clearly that it nearly seemed real to him, and Harry had begun stifling yawns with such frequency that Draco eventually began to feel rather guilty. "Look, Potter," he said. "If you want to sleep for a little while, go ahead and sleep." "But the spell-" "You're useless like this, anyway," said Draco. "You keep saying "Expecto Patroooooooooonum." He mimicked an enormous yawn. "I don't need to sleep," said Harry mulishly. "I just want to lie down for a minute." "So lie down," said Draco, and stifled a smile as Harry lay down, buried his face in his arms, and fell instantly asleep. Draco studied him for a moment, curious, and remembered the thin, gawky little boy he'd first met six years ago in the robe shop in Diagon Alley. He'd looked at Harry, seen his raggedly cut hair and his taped glasses, and thought: charity student. He'd nearly dismissed him outright, but something had made him start talking to him. There was something about Harry that made you pay attention to him; Draco couldn't have put a finger on what it was, but knew somehow that it was this, this peculiar and indefinable quality, that he had always envied. Harry had it even when he was exhausted, even when he was asleep and probably drooling all over his robes, too, thought Draco, glaring at him irritably. Was that what Hermione loved about him? He sighed, looked down at the sword in his lap, and then up again quickly. A flicker of movement at the corner of his eye had caught his attention. He looked at Harry, who lay still and unmoving, and then, with a feeling of distinct unease, turned and looked behind him. Two red eyes, veined with yellow, stared at him out of the darkness. Draco jumped violently, and a searing pain shot through his leg. "Hello," said the demon. Oh, God, Draco thought hopelessly as the demon moved closer. He looked around wildly, saw Harry still asleep, his arm thrown over his face. That sword is evil and I don't want it near me, Malfoy. You're going to get one of us killed. Draco looked back at the demon, which was staring at him out of whirling red eyes. I'll just...sit very still, he thought. Maybe it'll just think I can't be bothered to get up. He cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn't sound squeaky. "You again," he said. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." "I have come for my other half," replied the demon, looking at the sword in Draco's lap with something that looked unpleasantly like frustrated appetite. "Now, I just had this feeling you were going to say that," said Draco. "For a thousand years I have sought it, over sea, under earth -" "Yes, yes," said Draco, the pain in his leg making him impatient. "I've heard it all before. 'I've sought it for a thousand years, it's my other half, blah blah bitty blah, I'm a scary demon, gimme the sword.'" The demon's eyes gleamed. "You grasp the essence of my mission." "Now correct me if I'm wrong," said Draco. He held his left hand out in front of him, palm up, and Slytherin's sword leaped into his grasp and rested there with ease and precision. The demon's eyes widened. "But I can kill anything with this sword, right? Human...monster..." He jabbed the sword toward the demon, who skittered back. "Demon..." "Are you threatening me, boy?" said the demon in a hissing voice. "So it can hurt you," said Draco, sounding pleased. "You can't be certain," the demon said, looking shifty. "No, it's just a wild stab in the dark. Which is what you'll be getting in about one minute if you don't start being a bit more helpful." The demon bared its teeth, but backed away. "A thousand years ago," it said fiercely, "I traded my powers, in the form of that sword, to a wizard who had made a bargain with my people. He used it to become the most powerful sorcerer of his or any other time. That was all part of the bargain. But it was written in the contract he had made that at the end of a certain term, he was to give the sword back." The demon shook his head. "He never did, and vanished from the sight of the world. Vanished, still owing me! Still owing me my other half!" "I don't suppose," said Draco, "that anyone involved in this transaction had the forethought to get a receipt?" The demon looked at him blankly. Draco sighed. "Didn't think so." "That sword will do you no favors," snarled the demon, fixing its parti-colored eyes on Draco's. "You cannot hope to master it, control it, make it serve you. Instead, you will serve it. Surely you have seen in your dreams what awaits those who use this sword unwisely?" Draco could feel the sword hilt cold under his hand. "No," he lied. "No dreams." The demon stood up. Draco tightened his grip on the sword, not knowing what he would do if the demon lunged at him - he couldn't imagine fighting it off while sitting down. "You have no right to the sword," the demon growled. "What right do you claim?" Draco thought for a moment. Then he said, very calmly, "I claim the right of inheritance. This sword belonged to my father, and my father's father, and his father before him. Your contract was not with my family, nor with me. Therefore I owe you nothing." For a moment, the demon did not reply. Draco was disappointed. He had thought it was rather a good speech. Very Malfoy. "You are determined to retain the sword," said the demon, at last. "Your mind is made up?" "Yes," said Draco. "It is." The demon shrugged. "All right," it said, sounding almost cheerful. "Keep it. Give us a chant if you change your mind." And it vanished. Draco stared aghast at the spot where it had been standing, feeling suddenly and vastly uneasy. He thought, rather randomly, of something his father had said - one of Lucius Malfoy's many useful pieces of advice. If a difficult task suddenly seems far too easy, someone is screwing with you. Be suspicious. "Damn," he said, softly. "I've been had." His eyes darted around the clearing, searching for any sign of the demon - would it come back? Would it come back, and bring others with it? The clearing seemed quite empty, dark and silent, and then, out of the corner of his left eye, he saw a movement in between two trees. He felt his hands starting to shake - this was too much, it was too much. With a feeling of total unreality, he saw two dark-robed, dark-hooded figures step into the clearing, moving forward, utterly soundless. He tried to say Harry's name, but no sound came out of his throat. He let the sword slide out of his hand and pressed his back hard against the trunk of the tree. The one thought in his mind was that somehow he had to get to his feet. Seizing the hilt of the sword, he turned it upside down, and plunged the tip into the earth. Then slowly, agonizingly, he used it to pull himself upright, trying to put as little weight as possible on his broken leg. He thought he heard the bones grind against each other, and felt his hand so slick with sweat that he nearly lost his grip on the hilt. But he was on his feet now. Leaning hard on the sword, his back against the tree trunk keeping him upright, but on his feet. He looked up and through a dizzying swirl of colored spots dancing in front of his eyes, he saw the two dark figures moving closer. Closer to him, and to Harry, who was still asleep. He sucked in air through his teeth, and tried to draw his mind back, away from the clearing, the pain in his leg, his shaking hands, and concentrated hard on feeling happy. Happy, he told himself savagely, happy. He shut his eyes, and felt his hand where it rested on the hilt of the sword. It was cold under his palm, cold and full of power. His heartbeat slowed as his grip on the hilt tightened, and when he raised his left hand it had stopped shaking. Concentrating as hard as he could on his happy memory, eyes shut tightly, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Expecto Patronum!" Something huge, something vast and silvery-white, shot from his fingers like a bolt of summer lightning. The force of it knocked Draco backwards, and for a moment all he saw as he hit the ground was a sheet of white light shattered by black spots of agony. My leg -- it hurts, God, it hurts. "Harry," he tried to say, but his voice disappeared as the whole world seemed to tilt and fade for a moment, everything spinning away into darkness behind his eyes. I won't faint. I won't. He forced his eyes open. And saw three very pale faces staring down at him. Harry, Ron and Ginny, all of them looking white with shock and surprise. He struggled to raise himself up on his elbows. "The dementors--" "Malfoy," said Harry, reaching out and putting a hand on his chest, pushing him back down to the ground. "There weren't any dementors." "But I saw--" "That was Ron and Ginny you saw," said Harry, and there was amusement in his voice. "Sorry." Draco let his eyes flick from Ron to Ginny. They both nodded. "Damn," he said, with feeling. "Still, the spell thing was pretty cool," said Ginny. "And you looked very scary and all, at least before you shrieked and fell over and fainted." "On closer examination, I think you'll find that was less a shriek than a bellow," Draco said, and squinted at her. "Are you two all right?" "The Patronus spell is supposed to protect you against threats," said Harry. "Ron and Ginny aren't a threat, so your Patronus just sort of...vanished." "And I didn't even get to see it," said Draco mournfully. "Was it cool?" "It was." Harry's tired, dirt-streaked face broke into a smile. "You did it, Malfoy," he said. "Whatever your happy memory was, it worked." Draco was too tired to smile back at him, but he said, "You know, Potter, it really doesn't involve Hermione, a feather boa, and --" "I know," Harry cut him off. Ron and Ginny were now looking extremely curious. "I know when you're trying to wind me up, Malfoy. Okay," he added quickly, looking as if he were remembering the destruction of Lupin's office. "Most of the time." Ginny was gazing at Draco anxiously. "You're shaking," she said, under her breath. "The shaking is a side effect of the fear," said Draco. "Don't worry about it." Harry looked over at Ron. "Did you find anything?" he asked quietly. Ron shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Nobody around for miles. No towns, no houses. We came back because it was getting dark." He and Harry exchanged an anxious glance. "I was thinking," Ron went on in a low voice, "maybe we could make some kind of stretcher or something. Hang it between the broomsticks. We can't stay here, and we've got to do something." "It makes me nervous when you carry on about me like I'm not here," said Draco waspishly. "An easily solved problem," said Ron. He grabbed Harry by the back of his shirt and dragged him a few feet away, where they commenced talking in hushed whispers. Draco raised himself up on his elbows and looked at Ginny. She looked back at him with an indifferent expression. "Weasley --" he began, but she cut him off. "It was a dragon," she said. "It was what?" said Draco, startled. "Your Patronus," she said, dispassionately. "It was a dragon. It was silver. I thought you should know." Draco opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a hoarse shout from Ron, and another shout of surprise from Harry. Ignoring the searing bolt of pain that shot through his leg, he twisted around to see what was going on. He saw Ron and Harry standing with their wands out, and beyond them the dark shape of a tall man. A stranger had Apparated into the clearing. *** Lupin turned uneasily in the center of the moonlit grove, his ears pricked, alert for noises. He had not been in the Forbidden Forest for many years, but it had changed surprisingly little, and he had had no trouble following Sirius' directions. Of course, he and Sirius had crisscrossed these paths, four-footed, enough times as children that it was not surprising they were burned into his brain. The Forest, being a wild place, spoke not just to his human senses but also to his wolf-sense. Through the narrow corridors of trees, he glimpsed the movements of tiny animals - the skitter of their feet, the pale green jewel-like flash of eyes. He breathed in cold night air and the attendant forest smells of mold and moss and animals, of things growing and things dying. He knew this forest was home not just to deer and dormice, but to giant spiders, vampires, hippogriffs, centaurs and unicorns, all manner of things magical, none of which he would have had cause to fear in his lycanthropic form. As a man, though - but of course, he was never quite a man, never quite only a human man. So it was not entirely surprising that he heard the centaur approaching long before it became visible, breaking from the cover of the trees and cantering towards him. It was a male centaur, young-looking (although that meant nothing), with pale blond hair and a palomino coat. A satchel was slung over his back and his eyes as he approached Lupin were flinty and suspicious. "You summoned me," he said. "But you are not Sirius Black." "Sirius Black sent me," said Lupin quickly. "He said you owed him a favor. I am his friend. He sent me to collect the favor in his name." The centaur's nostrils flared. "Your kind and my kind are old enemies, werewolf," he said. "You should count it as a favor that I do not trample you to death. If there were more of us here -" "Yes," said Lupin, "Where are the rest of you? Sirius told me to ask for Ronin, and Bane --" "Gone," said the centaur, with a hoarse laugh. "Fled in terror, all of them." "In terror of what?" "In terror of He who Rises," said the centaur simply. He looked narrowly at Lupin's blank expression. "Surely you know who he is. Surely you know that he made your kind, as assuredly as he made the vampires and the veela, a thousand years ago." Lupin felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "Salazar Slytherin," he breathed. "So he has come back." "He is weak now," said the centaur. "He has only just risen. He does not yet possess his old powers. But that will come. We have seen it in the movements of the planets, have read it in the ancient books." "What ancient books?" The centaur ignored him. "Now, he retains only enough power to summon his children to him. Already they have begun to travel." "The dementors," Lupin said. "So that's where they've gone." The centaur cocked an eyebrow. "Soon, perhaps, you will feel the summons yourself, werewolf. What of the others of your kind?" "I am not often with others of my kind," said Lupin. "But I have felt no summons." "Not yet," said the centaur. "But if he is weak - if he lacks his old powers -" "He lacks a Source," said the centaur. "He can do nothing without a Source. But he will find a new one. It is foretold. And when he does-" "A Source?" Lupin interrupted, bewildered. The centaur sighed. "I do not have the time to instruct ignorant werewolves," he snapped. "I have the whole Forest to keep in order, and I am alone." He reached around and into the satchel slung over his shoulder, withdrawing a ragged and dilapidated-looking book. He tossed it to Lupin, who caught it reflexively, and stared. "Read that," said the centaur. "Then you will know as much as I do." "This book," said Lupin, staring down at it, "this will help us?" The centaur laughed without mirth. "Nothing will help you," he said, turned and broke into a canter. Lupin watched him go, then looked down at the book. He knew he should leave the forest as quickly as possible, but he couldn't help it - he yanked the book open with frantic fingers, and stared down at the pages. They were covered with incomprehensible squiggles. If it was a language, it wasn't one he had ever seen before. "Bugger," said Lupin, with feeling. *** "Ron?" said the stranger, sounding flabbergasted. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Ron dropped his wand. "Charlie?" There was a long, shocked silence. Eventually, Harry had the presence of mind to raise his wand. "Lumos," he said in a shaken sort of voice. White light blazed from the wand tip, illuminating the startled-looking figure of Charlie Weasley. To Harry, he looked much as he'd always looked -- dressed in a heavy leather jacket and looking just a bit burnt, as if he'd narrowly escaped being toasted by dragon fire, although the expression of stupefaction on his face as he stared at his younger brother was new. "Ron?" he said again. Ron made a gurgling sort of noise, paused, and tried again. "I -- what are you doing here, Charlie?" "I was -- I came here because -- there was a dragon here, wasn't there?" said Charlie, casting about wildly. "I heard there was a dragon on the loose here - so I Appararated - I saw it for a second but it vanished -- Ron, what the hell are you playing at, hanging about in the woods, miles from home, chasing dragons? Are you deranged?" Ron looked furious. Harry stepped in quickly, "There wasn't any dragon, Charlie," he said. "Well, there was, but it wasn't a real dragon. It was a Patronus." "A what?" said Charlie, staring. "Scratch that," he added hastily. "I know what a Patronus is, by why would you need to conjure one?" He looked at Harry. "Harry, did you-" "No," said Harry firmly. "It wasn't my Patronus." He pointed the beam of wandlight towards the tree where Draco was lying, Ginny beside him. "It was his." Charlie's jaw dropped, although he wasn't looking at Draco. "Ginny?" "Hallo, Charlie," said Ginny in a small voice. Charlie pelted over to the tree, dropped down by his younger sister, and took her by the shoulders. "Ginny! Are you all right?" "I'm fine, Charlie, I'm fine, that's just a scratch, really, I-" "Ow," said Draco, in a small, pained voice. "Ow. Please don't sit on the broken leg." Charlie jumped back, then stared at Draco as if seeing him for the first time. "Who're you?" "Draco Malfoy," said Draco. Charlie looked shocked. "Lucius Malfoy's son?" Draco looked mutinous. "Yes." "And that was your Patronus?" "Yes," said Draco again. Charlie's face broke into a grin. "That was a hell of a dragon." "I didn't see it," said Draco, still looking mutinous, although slightly less so. Ginny interrupted. "His leg's broken, Charlie," she said. Charlie stopped grinning. "How did that happen?" "It's kind of a long story," said Ron, looking nervous. "Fell off my broomstick," said Draco shortly. "Apparently not that long," said Charlie, and dropped down on his knees next to Draco. "Which leg?" Draco pointed. While Ron, Harry and Ginny watched -- Ron with surprise, Harry and Ginny with concern -- Charlie took out his wand and touched the tip of it gently to Draco's leg, just below the knee. "Compound fracture," he said briefly. "Looks like you put a right lot of work into messing up this leg, young Malfoy. Broken and twisted. You'd better come back to the camp with me - it's not far from here. All of you," he added, looking pointedly at Ron. "How?" said Harry. "Malfoy can't fly with his leg like that." Charlie reached into his breast pocket and removed a small silver box, about the size of a cigarette case, which he flipped open to reveal a hollowed-out square in which rested a small metal orb, about the size of a marble. "Portkey," he said. "We all carry them." "And when we get to your camp, you can fix Malfoy's leg?" said Ginny anxiously. "When you work with dragons, you get used to dealing with horrible injuries," said Charlie cheerfully. "One of our medic wizards can fix him right up. And in the meantime," he said, giving Ron a hard look, "you can tell me just exactly what you've been up to out here." *** Hermione, who had been sitting with her back to the stone wall of the tower, looked up as the door opened. To her surprise, it was Wormtail, not Slytherin. He closed the door behind him and turned to face her, and she saw that in his hand he was carrying a carved silver goblet, which was smoking and steaming. A cold fist of fear clenched inside her stomach. "Hello, Hermione," he said calmly. "What do you want?" she said coldly. "I just don't understand," he said in an unpleasant voice, "how a clever girl like you never learned any manners." "You know what I don't understand?" said Hermione. "How Sirius and Harry's father ever could have been friends with you in the first place. You're disgusting." She thought, but could not be sure, that she saw him flinch. A moment later, though, his smile widened, and he took several more steps towards her. She saw, with a sinking sensation, that in the hand that wasn't holding the goblet, Wormtail was gripping his wand. "My Master has given me permission to hurt you," he said. "Just give me the chance, and I will." Hermione was silent. "Quiet now, are you?" he said nastily. "Throat dry? Here." He held out the goblet to her. "Have a drink." She stared down into the intricately carved cup, which held a bluish-red liquid that swirled and steamed and popped with bubbles. It had a strong smell - not a bad smell, actually, rather a pleasant one, like lemons and roses and freshly baked bread. "I'm not thirsty," she said tightly. Wormtail grinned. "It's up to you," he shrugged. "You can either drink it, or I can put the Cruciatus Curse on you and torture you until you no longer have the use of your limbs. Then I'll force you to drink it anyway. But if you want to be stupid and brave, I'm all for it. Because I really want to torture you." Hermione could feel her heard beating in ugly, pressurized thumps against her ribcage. She remembered how Lucius had used the Cruciatus Curse on her back at Malfoy Mansion, trying to get her to tell him where Harry was... remembered wishing she could die. It wasn't something she would ever forget. Dully, she held out her hand and let Wormtail put the goblet in it. She considered dashing the contents of it onto the floor, but Wormtail was gazing at her with an expression that looked horribly like hunger. He was itching to hurt her. She could tell. She raised the cup to her mouth, and drank. It tasted of bitter sugar, sweet and stinging. She coughed, looking up to see Wormtail watching her avariciously as she swallowed. The world seemed to tilt around her. Somewhere, Wormtail was giggling, but Hermione barely heard him. A dizzy whirring noise had started in her ears; it sounded like there were a thousand trapped butterflies struggling to get out of her head. She could feel the potion burning its way down into her stomach, as if she had swallowed fire or pure light; she almost expected her skin to start glowing like a torch. She was terrified, and at the same time, felt a strange sort of dizzy and sickening pleasure, which was almost worse. "Was that..." she gasped out, "Was that poison?" Wormtail laughed harshly. "Not at all," he said, leaning forward and deftly plucking the cup from her loosening fingers. "That, my dear, was what is commonly termed a love potion." Her eyelids were so heavy they felt like stones, but she dragged them open and stared at Wormtail with dimly realized horror. "Love potions...they're not real...they don't work..." "Oh, but they are, and they do," said Wormtail. "That was one of the oldest. The use of it is quite illegal, of course. Life sentence in Azkaban. But," he shrugged, "that hardly matters." "I can't," gasped Hermione, as the world tilted around her, "I can't stay awake..." "That's right," said Wormtail in a singsong voice. "The potion takes a few hours to work. When you awake, the first person before your eyes will be the person you will love from that moment on, desperately and unconditionally and forever. Dark magic," he smiled, showing his little rat teeth. "There's nothing like it. Sleep tight, dear girl," he added, as Hermione sank back into the straw. "And when you awake, the face of Salazar Slytherin will be the first thing that you see." *** "So, do mum and dad have the least idea where you are?" said Charlie, fixing Ron with a look so terrifying it almost made Harry glad that he had no older brothers. When they had arrived at the camp -- and it really was a camp, a collection of tents of various sizes, most of which were occupied by Charlie's dragon-studying colleagues -- the first thing Charlie had done was to call for several medic wizards, who had carted Draco away to the tent that apparently served as an infirmary. This left Harry, Ron and Ginny to face the music. The music, in the case, was an extremely irritable Charlie Weasley, who wanted nothing more than to immediately owl both his parents and tell them that Ron and Ginny were in fact, not at home, but wandering at large around some rather distant forests with Lucius Malfoy's son and Harry, both of whom were supposed to be at school. "Charlie, don't," said Ron, sounding rather desperate. "They're on vacation in the Lake District...I didn't want to bother them." Charlie shook his head. "You're up to something, Ron," he said. "Remember, I'm related to Fred and George as well as you. I know that up-to-something expression." "Like you've never been up to anything," said Ron heatedly. "All those times when I was a kid and you swore me to secrecy, I never grassed on you, not once." "You're still a kid, Ron," said Charlie. "Your safety is my main concern. Your safety, and Ginny's." "Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" snapped Ginny. "And you're being totally unfair to Ron!" Charlie looked taken aback. "He's not Fred or George," she stormed. "When Ron does things, it's because he's got a good reason. He doesn't take stupid risks. And neither does Harry!" "Mum and Dad wouldn't be happy if --" Ginny cut Charlie's protest off with a wave of her hand. "I remember when you decided you wanted to work with dragons, and Mum cried for a week," she said sharply. "She was sure you'd be killed. They don't like your job or Bill's hair or Percy being a workaholic either, but they trust us, all of us, and especially Ron. Why don't you?" Charlie opened his mouth, with the stunned expression of someone who just knows there's a loophole in the logic he's just heard, but can't quite put a finger on what it is. "Ginny..." "Just trust us, Charlie," she said. Wearily, Charlie raised a hand and rubbed at his bleary eyes. Then he sighed. "Anyone want to come and see the dragons?" he offered, rather abruptly. "I do," said Harry and Ginny immediately - Ginny, because she truly liked dragons and Harry because he had a feeling that this was the way to get on Charlie's good side. Ron, still looking thunderous, agreed more reluctantly. They followed Charlie through the camp, casting each other uneasy glances as they went. Despite Charlie's sudden offer, they had a feeling he was still in a fairly apprehensive mood. Several meters past the last tent was a large cleared area, about the size of two Quidditch fields, ringed around with magical barriers. Inside the cleared area were several dragons, none of them as large as the Hungarian Horntail Harry had faced his third year. Harry thought he recognized one of them as a Swedish Short-Snout. Charlie pointed at it. "That's the dragon that told me about Draco's Patronus," he said. "Dragons talk?" said Ron, looking startled. "Well, you have to learn Dragonish to communicate with them, and even them it's unrewarding," said Charlie. "Mostly it's a lot of reminiscing about the good old days when villagers used to leave girls tied to stakes for them to eat, and complaining about why don't they get to fly more, and wanting to be told how pretty their scales are. But," he added, "every once in a while they've got a useful piece of information. Like tonight." "We told you," said Ron. "It wasn't a real dragon. It was a Patronus." "Helped me find you, didn't it?" Ron looked as if he wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing. "Would you look at that," said a voice behind them. It was Draco, having emerged at last from the infirmary tent. His clothes were as battered and dirty as they had been before, but the cuts and scratches on his arms and face were mostly gone, and his leg, obviously, was back to normal -- although the medic wizards had cut away his left trouser leg below the knee, presumably to get at the broken bone. Draco didn't seem to mind, though. He had a rapt expression on his face as he gazed past them at the dragons. "They're fantastic," he said. Charlie suddenly beamed. "Aren't they?" "Don't know why we've never done dragons in Care of Magical Creatures," said Draco, still staring upward. "Probably the same reason we've never done Certain Death Charms in Flitwick's class," said Ron sourly. "Mortality rate." "Malfoy," said Harry, sounding curious, "that dragon is staring at you." He was right. The blue Swedish Short-Snout had fixed its enormous dinner-plate eyes on Draco and was gazing at him with a look that could almost be described as fond. Charlie looked amazed. "I think she likes you," he said to Draco. "That hardly ever happens." "Maybe he smells like food," muttered Ron. Draco approached the barrier, stood as close to it as he could, and gazed up at the dragon, which gazed back, emitting cheerful-looking puffs of smoke. "Well, I'll be," said Charlie, still looking startled. He turned to Draco. "Do you - do you want to help me feed them later?" he asked. "I wouldn't ask, but it's so rare that they take to people...I just thought..." Draco nodded. "Sure." Charlie looked thrilled. As Ron looked on resentfully, he clapped Draco on the back in a brotherly manner and said, "That's great, that's just - great." Then, seeming to notice Draco's rather battered appearance for the first time, he said hastily, "It looks like you might need to borrow some clothes." "Trousers," said Draco immediately. "I don't much fancy pioneering the new one-trouser-leg look, even if we are in the middle of nowhere." "You can have some of my old clothes," said Charlie amicably. "Come along with me, all of you, you can wash up in the tents." "In one second," said Draco. "I want to talk to Harry." "We'll meet you over there," said Harry to Ron, who shrugged and walked off with Charlie and Ginny. Harry looked at Draco curiously. "What is it, Malfoy?" "We're really close," said Draco in a low, excited voice. "The Charm - as soon as we got here, it started, I don't know, vibrating. We can't be more than an hour away from wherever Hermione is." Harry looked at Draco hard. "You're sure." Draco grinned. "Have I ever let you down?" "Do you want me to answer that, or should I just glare?" "Glare away," said Draco. "I'm still right. I think we should go immediately -- well as soon as I get some new clothes, but relatively immediately. And I think we should take as few Weasleys with us as possible." Harry looked astonished. "Go without Ron and Ginny?" Draco nodded. "That's ridiculous, Malfoy. Whatever happened to strength in numbers?" "Two's a number," said Draco. "I'm not going anywhere without Ron," said Harry. "Why not? You'll just have to worry about protecting him--" "You don't know the first thing about him!" yelled Harry. "And you think you do?" "What's that supposed to mean?" Draco gave him a narrow look. "Nothing, if you don't want to hear it," he said. "I don't listen to him when he talks about you," said Harry. "Why should I listen to you when you talk about him?" Draco looked startled. Possibly it hadn't occurred to him that Harry might ever stick up for him. "I'm tired of you two sniping," said Harry. "I am tired of this stupid family feud of yours. Keep it up if you want, but I plan to ignore you." "Sure," said Draco. "When nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will always see us through." "You're not going to be able to make me angry," said Harry, starting to walk away. "Not this time." Draco followed him, still argumentative. "That's right, Potter, scuttle away..." "I am not scuttling away. I am storming off. And it doesn't work if you come with me, so sod off, Malfoy, and go bother Charlie. At least he likes you." *** Charlie's tent was set back from the others and, like many wizarding tents, was much more spacious inside than it appeared from outside. Inside, it was a tidy little bachelor apartment. The door opened onto a small kitchen, in which Draco waited while Charlie went off to get him a change of clothing. Draco could glimpse other rooms leading off a narrow corridor, each decorated with neat wooden furniture pieces that looked as if Charlie had made them by hand. Over the fireplace in the kitchen hung a photograph of the Weasley family, waving and smiling, and next to it was a square silver mirror. Draco glanced into it, wincing as he saw just how bloodied, muddied, and battered he looked. "Ve-ry interesting," drawled the mirror in a decidedly feminine voice, making him jump. "Lots of promise here. Can't wait to see how you clean up." Charlie, who had come back into the room carrying a pile of clothing, snorted with laughter. "Leave him alone, Audrey," he said sternly to the mirror. "He's only sixteen." "Seventeen in a month," said Draco automatically, backing away from the mirror. He was used to mirrors that talked, but not necessarily mirrors that talked so frankly. "Here," said Charlie, setting the clothes he had brought down on the table. "Some of my clothes, I don't know if they'll fit you, but...I brought you one of my old jackets, too, in case you wanted to come with me to feed the dragons. They really seem to like you. Ever thought of studying dragons, maybe, after you graduate? You could get an internship." "Never thought about it," said Draco truthfully, shrugging off his jacket and reaching for the clothes on the table. Charlie whistled. "That," he said, "is a great sword." Draco glanced down at Slytherin's sword, which was stuck through his belt. "Thanks," he said. "It's been in my family for a long time." "Can I see it?" Charlie asked, reaching out a hand. Draco shook his head. "It's enchanted," he said regretfully. "It'd char off your fingers." "Well, who wouldn't enchant a sword like that?" said Charlie, with another dazzled look. "Although," he added, "you're carrying it wrong." He grinned at Draco's expression. "There's no point sticking it through your belt where it's going to bang against your leg every time you move. You should carry it over your shoulder, so you can reach back and grab it if you need it, but it'll be out of your way." "You seem to know a lot about this," said Draco. "I like swords," said Charlie. "It sort of goes with the liking-dragons thing. I've got lots of gear I could lend it to you." "Thanks," Draco said. "As a matter of fact," said Charlie thoughtfully, "if you're going to be feeding dragons, you're going to need all the right gear. Hold on a minute, I'll be right back." *** "Your brother seems to like Malfoy," said Harry, as he and Ron washed the dirt off their faces and hands in the tent that Charlie had provided for them."The dragons like Malfoy, so Charlie likes him," said Ron, shrugging. "He'd like the Dark Lord if he got along with the Hungarian Horntails. At least it took his mind off us." Harry looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. He'd removed most of the dirt and blood with a washcloth, revealing a very pale, very unhappy face whose green eyes were smudged with exhaustion. He put his glasses back on and straightened up, running a hand through his untidy hair. "Cheer up, love," said the mirror gently. "Nothing's that bad." Outside the tent they met Ginny, who, not being as filthy as the boys, had cleaned herself up more quickly. Her red hair, wet from being washed, hung in damp fiery tendrils around her face. She smiled at Ron, then looked anxiously at Harry, "Feeling better?" Harry shrugged. "Just tired." Ron smiled at his sister, and then his eyes slid sideways and he stared in surprise. "Well, would you look at Malfoy," he said. Ginny and Harry turned and glanced where Ron had indicated. Draco was walking towards them across the clearing. Charlie had dressed him in an outfit that was much like his own. It appeared to be standard dragon-keeper wear, if anything about dragon keeping could be considered standard. Over his own shirt Draco wore Charlie's jacket of black dragon-hide leather, and tight black leather trousers. (Editor's note: Do they have to be tight? Okay, okay, they're tight. It's your fault if he can't sit.) Charlie had also given Draco a pair of sturdy black boots, which were a little too big on him, and a black belt with a buckle in the shape of a dragon. Against all the black, his silvery hair and pale skin stood out startlingly. He looked a older, thought Ginny, and different, somehow, in Charlie's battered leather clothes. They gave an edge to looks that had always been almost too pretty, gave him a toughness, a darkness, that he had never had before. "Heavens above," said Ginny, utterly unaware that she was speaking out loud. "Malfoy looks really hot." She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Did you just hear me say that?" Ron nodded. "Oh, God," said Ginny, with feeling. "Somebody, kill me please. I don't want to live anymore." Harry snorted with laughter. "Ginny, shut up," said Ron, looking exasperated. "He looks like an idiot." "No he doesn't," said Ginny, sounding amazed, "he looks...like a drawing, or a painting..." Harry snorted again, this time in disgust. "I can just see that hanging in the Tate," he said. "'Still Life with Prat in Ridiculous Trousers.'" Ginny ignored him, standing with her hand over her mouth as Draco approached them, waving. When he reached them, he looked at her curiously. "Something wrong?" he said. Ginny squeaked, turned around, and fled in the opposite direction. Draco looked curiously at Ron. "What's bothering her?" "Leather," said Harry, looking after Ginny with an expression of mixed amusement and surprise. "She hates leather. She's a vegetarian." Draco rolled his eyes. "It's dragon-hide," he said. "Taken from already-dead dragons, might I add. Dragons are way to valuable to kill for their skins." Ron made a muffled sort of noise. "Do you want me to go and tell her?" said Draco, sounding exasperated. "Oh, no," said Ron. "She wants to be alone, with her, uh..." "Vegetarianism," said Harry. Draco looked at them dispassionately. "You two are the least skilled liars in the world," he said. "And I include Neville Longbottom in that statement." "Then you'll know that I'm not lying when I tell that you look ridiculous," said Harry. "Leather trousers, Malfoy?" "They are flame-retardant dragon hide and extremely useful," said Charlie, who had come up behind them, with a grin. "Draco's going to help me feed the dragons." "No, Draco isn't," said Ron firmly. "We have to go. Now. If you want to prat around feeding dragons, Malfoy, that's fine. Just give us the Charm and we'll go without you." Charlie looked from Draco to Ron to Harry. He opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was he saw in Harry's expression made him shut his mouth. "All right," he said. "All right. I don't know what you boys have gotten yourself mixed up in. Ron, I'm going to put a Tracking Charm on you. If you're not back in three hours, I'm going to Apparate myself to wherever you are. Is that clear?" Ron nodded. "Clear," he said. "And Ginny stays here," added Charlie. "She won't like that," said Harry. "I don't care," said Charlie, with a faint grin. "I'd be in enough trouble if Mum knew I was letting Ron go off to do God-knows-what with you two. Add in Ginny, and I might as well never come home again." *** I won't fall asleep. I won't. Hermione lay on the straw in the tower room where Wormtail had left her, her hands clamped firmly over her eyes. The moment he had left the room, she had begun whispering under her breath, chanting a Wakefulness Charm she had often used while studying late into the night. Slowly, very slowly, the fog had begun to recede from her brain, the bright dancing colors behind her eyelids had vanished, and she no longer felt that she was in danger of slipping into unconsciousness. She would have liked to think that since she had conquered the sleeping spell that the love potion would no longer work either, but she had little hope that this would turn out to be true. To keep herself from panicking, she tried to think of pleasant things, things that had once made her happy. She shut her eyes tightly, thought of her parents, of school, of Hogsmeade trips with Ron and Harry. And then, just of Harry. The happiest she'd ever been in her life had been those last two weeks with Harry at school. More than anything in the world, she wanted to hear Harry's voice again. She pictured him in her mind, the last week of school, felt her mind pressing down on the memory as if the pressure of wanting could make it real. Harry was smiling at her, holding her hand, tugging her down the corridor outside the Gryffindor common room. Harry, I have homework, she was protesting, laughing. Harry, you can't be using the Marauder's Map just to find unattended closets we can make out in. Harry laughed, Why not? He consulted the Map. What about this closet? This is a great closet. Harry, all closets are pretty much the same. Oh, no. This one's exceptional. He picked her up and carried her into the closet, setting her down carefully and kicking the door shut behind him. Okay. Here we are. Nice closet, isn't it? Harry...are we in here for a reason? We've had exams all week and I feel like all I've been doing is studying and packing and other stuff I don't want to do. I've hardly seen you. I guess I just wanted to be alone with you. I don't care if we do anything else. Really. I just want to look at you. Well, I don't stand around in broom closets just for fun. Meaning? Meaning you better kiss me, Harry Potter, or I'll put the Leg-Locker Hex on you and leave you here until Filch finds you. Harry threw the Map up into the air in delight. Finally, something I want to do! Her fingers, pressed tightly over her eyes, couldn't stop the tears from coming. Harry seemed a million miles away; everything seemed a million miles away, as if it had happened a thousand years ago, not just two weeks. *** Draco had been right; they were very close by. They had been flying barely forty-five minutes when Draco gestured to Ron and Harry that they should descend. They found themselves standing in what had probably once been an enormous clearing, although it was now overgrown with trees. The half-ruined walls Draco had seen when he held the Charm loomed darkly over them; inside the walls, half-veiled in shadows, he had recognized the tower and the overgrown gardens that surrounded it as they had descended through the air. It was dank, gloomy and mournful under the trees. Harry, Draco and Ron looked at each other uneasily. "I guess we should climb over the walls," said Harry, finally. "We could fly over," suggested Ron. "Too visible," said Draco. "Might as well just march up to the front door." "What if we --" Ron began. "Am I jumping the gun," asked Draco, "or are the words 'I have a plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?" Harry gave Draco a warning look. Ron just ignored him. "As I was saying, if we --" He was interrupted by a sudden sound that emanated from the opposite side of the wall -- a sound like music. Harry, with a jolt at his heart, first thought it must be phoenix song. It had the same ethereal sweetness, but as he listened, he realized it was higher and sweeter and more piercing still, and it seemed somehow to draw him forward...forward towards the wall... "Hey!" said Draco, staring at Harry and Ron, both of whom had flung themselves at the wall and seemed to be attempting to climb it. Reaching out, he seized the two of them by the backs of their robes and yanked them bodily back down. "Snap out of it!" he shouted, dragging them away from the wall. Thankfully, the singing had begun to fade. 'Both of you!" Ron wrenched his robe of out Draco's hands and snarled, "Snap out of what?" "You were going to climb over the wall," said Draco. "No we weren't," protested Ron. "Yes we were," said Harry, whose robe was still gripped in Draco's hand. "What was that, Malfoy?" "The singing noise? That was veela song," said Draco. "Pretty, wasn't it?" "Veela?" repeated Ron, looking astounded. "Looks like the place is guarded by veela," said Draco. "Bit of a clever idea, that." Ron snorted. "What're they going to do, kiss us to death?" Draco gave him a disgusted look. "What?" snarled Ron, nettled. "You don't know anything about veela, do you Weasley?" Draco said. " True veela have only two uses for human men. Procreation ... and food." "Food?" echoed Ron, looking faint. "Food," repeated Draco. He grinned. "I read my great-great grandmother's diary once," he said. "There was this passage in there about how this human man invited her over for dinner, only of course he didn't realize that she thought he was going to be dinner, and there she was caught short with no carving knives. Fortunately he had an extensive penknife collection, and I can tell no one's loving this story, so I'll just shut up right now. Suffice it to say, veela are dangerous. They're Dark magic creatures." Harry looked horrified. "Lupin," he said. "Oh, Fleur's only a fourth veela," said Draco, with equanimity. "The most she'll do is nibble on his earlobe." "I could have done without that image," said Ron. But Harry was looking at Draco. "What do we do?" he said. "Well," said Draco, "either you can go wandering in there and be veela soup in about ten minutes, or you can wait here while I go in and talk to them." "Won't you get eaten?" said Ron, sounding rather hopeful. "I'm part veela," said Draco. "They won't bother me." Harry looked at him. "Are you sure?" Draco took a deep breath. "I'm sure," he said. "Can you lift me over the wall?" Harry took his wand out. "Yeah, I can," he said. He took a step back, pointed the wand at Draco. "Wingardium leviosa!" Draco rose up in the air slowly, and landed on the top of the wall on his hands and knees. He looked down at Harry, standing below him with his wand out, his green eyes tense but steady. "Malfoy," said Harry. "What?" "You'll come back, right?" "I'll come back," said Draco, and jumped down from the wall into the garden. As soon as his feet touched the ground, a wave of frigid air washed over him, redolent with the scent of dust and rotting flower petals. The light seemed to fade, although the sun was still high overhead. It was as if a dim, shimmering curtain had dropped down before his eyes - he saw dusty rows of flowerbeds, interspersed with indistinct hedges starred with pale and withered flowers. In the distance, he could see the gray hulking wall of the tower. He could still hear the veela song, although it too was dimmed, as if his ears had been stuffed with cotton wool. When he started to move forward, even the sound of his boots on the gravel came faintly to his ears. Everything was incredibly still, there seemed to be no movement at all - until he caught a the faintest flicker of white light at the corner of his eye, like the glancing wing of a white butterfly, and turned and saw them. They evolved out of the shadows between the shrubbery; white on darkness, a half-dozen or so tall, pale, beautiful women with long hair that shimmered like silver in the dim light. For all his talk, Draco had never seen a pureblooded veela up close. He felt as if a chilly fist had squeezed his heart, felt terror and admiration in equal measure. He stood his ground as they came up to him - there seemed little point in running away. They approached slowly, not hurrying - it was hard to tell how many of them there actually were they seemed to flit back and forth like butterflies. There was a taller one in the center of the group who seemed to walk a little ahead. Draco decided she was the head veela, an assumption that seemed to be borne out when they stopped, a mere foot from him, and the tall veela gestured the others to be silent. "You have been unwise in coming here, human man," she said to Draco, her red lips parted over her sharp white teeth and she stared at him. "Look at me," said Draco, trying to keep his voice steady. "Do I look human to you?" The veela blinked. One of them said, in a tinselly little voice, "He isn't as ugly as most of them, is he?" "His hair is just like ours," said another. "I'm awfully hungry," said yet another, a statement that caused Draco to jump back a foot. "There is one way to tell for sure," said the head veela, and stepping towards an astonished Draco, she seized him and kissed him firmly on the lips. It was more like being caught in a hurricane or some kind of freak meteorological occurrence than any kiss he'd experienced or imagined before. He seemed to hear a raging wind tearing through his head, felt himself spinning, was blinded by whirling streaks of silver. In the back of his mind, he heard Ron saying: what're they going to do, kiss us to death? Chalk one up for Weasley, he thought, and wondered if he might be going to black out. The veela released him, and the sickening whirling-howling tempest stopped abruptly. She smiled. "He is one of us," she announced, and the other veela, giving shrieks of delight, fell on him like a consortium of mad aunts -- pulling at his hair, stroking the lapels of his leather jacket, pinching at any exposed skin they could reach, and "Ow! Who bit me?" yelled Draco indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle away from their grasping hands. There must not be many part-veela men, he thought, slapping a hand that was reaching for his belt buckle. Wish somebody'd TOLD me that before. "Hey! Stop that!" His voice, steady for two full years now, chose that moment to rocket up several octaves. "Hands off!" he squeaked warningly. "Ow-hands-hands in new places-okay, that really isn't necessary... Leave my hair alone! Calm down for God's sake, there's plenty of Draco Malfoy to go around, you know -" He broke off as the veela released him and stepped back, suddenly silent. The head veela stared at him in surprise. "You're Draco Malfoy?" she said. Draco was floored. Of course, he'd always dreamed that there would come a day when he would be so famous that the mere mention of his name would silence a room full of people. He just hadn't realized it had already happened. "You should have said so," said the head veela, sounding indignant. "I - should have - what?" Draco spluttered inelegantly, but the veela, looking haughty, had already begun stalking away. Draco stared after them, his mouth open in shock. I have absolutely no idea what just happened, he thought to himself. No idea whatsoever. One day I'll find out what that was all about. But not right now. He began edging away towards the tower walls, half expecting that one of the veela would dash over to try to stop him. But not one of them did. They seemed to have forgotten he was even there. He continued to edge until he could no longer see them. The he paused, straightened up, and glanced around. And felt his heart thump in surprise. He recognized where he was. The gray, tired-looking tower with its burnt, black walls - the dead trees - this was what he had seen in his mind when he had used the Epicyclical charm. He must be very close to where Hermione was. He began to walk more quickly, excited, skirting the wall, turning a corner, and as the familiar-looking half-burned tower came into view he suddenly heard Harry's voice in his head, Malfoy, you will come back? Draco began to walk more slowly. Had Harry meant come back in one piece? Or had he meant come back when you've gotten rid of the veela so that we can go on together? He knew, of course. He knew exactly what Harry had meant. Harry wouldn't want to be left out of any part of this, would resent being abandoned to stand outside the walls while Draco went to look for Hermione. Something he had no real right or business doing. I should go back, he thought. I should go back and get Ron and Harry. Harry's face swam in front of his eyes suddenly, wan and anxious it he had been the last few days. Ouch! He had walked into the wall of the castle. He stepped back, rubbing his elbow where he'd banged it against the stone, and looked up. He was standing directly under a tumbledown wall, the north side of which was blackened as if it had been burned in a fire. He felt a thrill of recognition. I'm here. Halfway up the wall, he could see a square barred window. He could feel the Charm around his neck, pulsing hot and cold against his skin. She was here; she was close by. If he closed his eyes, he could see her face. He could see himself rescuing her, see her looking up at him, telling him he was amazing, brave. Forget it, he told himself sharply. She chose Harry. She's not going to be pleased about being rescued, either, especially not by me -- she's far too independent, she's not going to throw her arms around me and tell me I've been brave. She'll probably just kick me in the ankle. You'll come back, right? said Harry's voice in his head. Who cares what he meant? said another, sharper voice. Harry always gets to be the hero. Wins every game. Gets the girl. It'll always be that way; it'll never change. He won the last round; this won't make any real difference to him. But this is your chance to show you're better. Better or just as good. He raised his hand without thinking, pointed at the barred window. "Accio!" There was a ripping, tearing sound, and the bars wrenched themselves free of the stone that held them and flew at him with such force that he jumped aside, letting them thunk loudly into the grass. He looked around wildly, but the gardens were as empty as before. Now climb, he told himself. Still, it was another several long moments before he could force his feet to move. *** Wormtail smiled to himself with satisfaction as he eased the stone door open and stepped into the round room. It was just as he had left it; the darkness, the straw scattered across the floor, and Hermione, lying unconscious on the bed of straw, her cheek pillowed on her hand. He knelt down next to her, checking to make sure her eyes were closed, then pulled a length of material from his pocket and commenced binding it around her eyes, tying it tightly. It wouldn't do for her to see anyone before the person she was intended to see. If, he thought, you could accurately call Salazar Slytherin a person. He had just leaned forward to check that the knot behind her head was secure, then out of the corner of his eye, caught a flicker of movement. He turned his head, and to his utter astonishment, saw Hermione's hand emerging from his pocket -- but she'd been unconscious -- clutching it its grip his wand. He gasped involuntarily, and saw her shaking hand swing around to point the wand at him. "Stupefy!" she hissed. *** For a moment, Hermione thought the spell hadn't worked. Then she heard the thud as Wormtail collapsed to the floor, landing heavily across her left leg. Revolted, she wriggled violently to the side, still gripping the wand, and staggered to her feet. She took a step forward, and her foot connected with something solid and heavy - Wormtail's body. Feeling nauseated, she staggered backwards, her hands outstretched behind her, until she struck the wall. She began to feel her way along it; her eyes squeezed shut under the blindfold, her fingers skittering over the rough stone. Her ears were pricked for any sound from Wormtail, but the room was utterly silent. Her fingers found the smoother wood of the door, slid down it, and found the knob. She wrenched at it, but it was immovable. Desperately, she clawed at the lock, but it was impossible, without being able to see it, for her shaking fingers to make sense of the complex metal configurations. At last she reached up, ripped the blindfold down -- I won't look behind me, I won't -- saw the lock, twisted it sharply, and wrenched the door open. And saw Draco, standing astonished on the other side. *** A/N: If it seems a bit odd that one moment, Draco was outside the castle, and the next moment, he was inside, that's fine. There's an intentional gap there. More on that later. *** Draco Sinister Chapter 5: Undiscovered Country For a moment, Hermione thought the spell hadn't worked. Then she heard the thud as Wormtail collapsed to the floor, landing heavily across her left leg. Revolted, she wriggled violently to the side, still gripping the wand, and staggered to her feet. She took a step forward, and her foot connected with something solid and heavy -- Wormtail. Feeling nauseated, she staggered backwards, her hand outstretched behind her, until she struck the wall. She began to feel her way along it, her eyes squeezed shut under the blindfold, her fingers skittering over the rough stone. Her ears were pricked for any sound from Wormtail, but the room was utterly silent. Her fingers found the smoother wood of the door, slid down it, and found the knob. She wrenched at it, but it was immovable. Desperately, she clawed at the lock, but it was impossible, without being able to see it, for her shaking fingers to make sense of the complex metal configurations. At last she reached up, ripped the blindfold down -- I won't look behind me, I won't -- saw the lock, twisted it sharply, and wrenched the door open. And saw Draco, standing astonished on the other side. *** As astonished as Draco was to see Hermione, he was even more astonished by the look on her face. She looked as horrified as if she had seen a ghost -- and not just any ghost. The ghost of someone she loved. "Hermione?" he said. "Are you - are you all right?" She stared at him, still with the same awful, blank expression. "Oh, no," she said. "Not you." *** Draco stared at her. "I suppose you're here to rescue me," she said flatly, looking as if she were going to burst into tears. "I-well, yes," he replied, floored. "Shall I come back at a more convenient time?" "Why couldn't you have been Harry?" she said, still staring at him distractedly. "Is he all right? Why isn't he here?" Draco stared at her. He hadn't expected a really big welcome, but this was ridiculous. "There were these veelas..." he began, awkwardly. "And Harry's fine, he's waiting outside. And my God, Hermione, what'd you do to Pettigrew?" he added, staring over her shoulder. Hermione turned around, following his glance, and saw Wormtail lying sprawled on his back in the straw. Apparently, when she had kicked him, it had been in the face. The straw around his head was dark with blood. "I hit him," she said shortly. "I should say you did," agreed Draco, looking rather impressed. Then he shook his head, as if clearing it of cobwebs. "Is he the one who was keeping you here?" he demanded. Hermione shook her head listlessly. "No." "So there's someone else here-someone more evil, more powerful?" Hermione nodded yes. "Right," said Draco, and seized her arm. "We're going." Hermione didn't seem to want to move, so Draco began dragging her behind him down the hallway. She trailed him unwillingly, glancing behind her every few steps as if she expected them to be followed. "Do you know the way out?" he asked her, panting a little as he tugged on her arm. "And would you hurry up?" "No, I don't know the way out," she replied in a leaden voice. "I don't think there is one - and he's around here somewhere, he's not going to let us just leave-" "Who's he? Voldemort?" She laughed hollowly. "Voldemort? No." They reached the top of a wide staircase, carved of pitted stone, that swept down to what looked like it had once been an entrance hall. Draco could see the dim outline of broken pillars and a cracked marble floor. He turned and looked at Hermione, who was still looking blank, stunned, and miserable. "Can you make it down the stairs?" "I am perfectly fine," she said, in a clipped voice. "Okay..." He looked at her, bewildered, shook his head, and started down the steps. She followed him, walking slowly. He had to resist the urge to hurry her forward in exasperation. I don't know what she's been through, he reminded himself. Anything could have happened to her - anything at all. He cast a sideways look at her. She looked all right - tired, of course, and with that mother-of-pearl shine under her eyes that meant that she'd been crying. There was a cut on her lip that looked as if she'd bitten it, but other than that she seemed unhurt. "Hermione," he said suddenly, turning towards her. "Look, you don't have to talk to me, but just tell me if you're all right. Just nod, will you?" "Such concern," said a voice behind them. "How very endearing." They both turned; Draco quickly, Hermione more slowly, as if she dreaded what she might see. Salazar Slytherin stood at the foot of the stairs. *** Lupin looked up at the knock on his door. "Just a second," he called out, glancing around hastily. He hadn't really had time to straighten up his office since he'd discovered it wrecked the day before. He'd swept most of the shards of adamantine into a corner, and spent some time separating his papers into "ruined" and "not ruined" piles. A few spells had fixed the windows, and returned the nymph-who-looked-like-Lily's snow globe to something resembling its former condition (although the snow in the globe now had a tendency to look rather blue.) Lupin reached out and yanked a copy of the Daily Prophet towards him, covering the pages of the book he was reading, or trying to read. It was the book the centaur had given him in the Forbidden Forest, and so far he'd had no luck trying to decipher what language it was written in. He'd tried Trollish, Mermish, Giantish, and even Elvish, to no effect. "Come in," he called. It was Fleur. She came in smiling, the light catching her silver hair, turning it to tinsel. "'Ello, Professor! You wanted to see me?" "Fleur," he replied, with weary caution. "Yes. I wanted to ask you something." She smiled at him. "Yes?" "Do you know where Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are?" Her smile vanished, to be replaced by a pout. "No, I do not," she said. "Why would I?" "Right." Lupin rubbed his eyes tiredly. He was fairly sure he could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Have I mentioned that I know perfectly well that they sent you over here the other day to trick me into leaving my office? It seemed possible to me that they might have let you in on the rest of their plans." "Maybe," said Fleur, batting her eyelashes, "It was just because I like you." Lupin sighed. "Fleur," he said. "I told you. I'm a werewolf. That veela business doesn't work on me. Besides, I'm twice your age and I'm your teacher." "I could take a different class," suggested Fleur. "I'd still be a teacher here at this school," said Lupin. Now he was positive that he was getting a headache. "Well, actually, as to that," said a voice from the corner. Both Lupin and Fleur turned around. It was Sirius, of course, his head and shoulders visible in the fireplace. "I need to talk to you, Remus," he said. Relieved, Lupin turned to Fleur. "If you'll excuse us?" Fleur gave Lupin an appraising look. Then she gave Sirius an appraising look. Whatever it was she was thinking caused her to smile broadly. She turned around, twitched her shoulders, and walked out, shutting the door behind her. "Pretty girl," said Sirius. "Quite," said Lupin, in a tone that suggested that that avenue of conversation was closed. "Are you back home, Sirius?" "I'm at the Mansion, with Narcissa," said Sirius, who looked tired. "We got back last night. I've sent the Aurors packing for the moment, and I've been up all night. I owled Dumbledore --" "So did I." "And I've owled Harry's friends -- I sent a message to Ron Weasley last night, since he's Harry's best friend I thought he might have an idea where he's gone." "What does Dumbledore say?" "He seems to think Harry's all right," said Sirius. "He's not worried." "Good," said Lupin, trying to sound more optimistic than he felt. "Did you go to the Forbidden Forest?" "I did," said Lupin. He reached for the book and carried it over to the fire, where he showed it to Sirius and explained what the centaur had told him. Sirius looked at the book and shook his head. "Never seen anything like it," he said. "Not even during my Auror training. Are you sure that's a language? It just looks like squiggles." "Oh, it's a language," said Lupin. "It's got recognizable patterns. But I'm damned if I've ever seen anything like it before. And considering that I only have half my books here, and half of those have been ruined--" "Speaking of books," interrupted Sirius. "Look, I've just been talking to the Ministry about you --" "About me?" said Lupin, thunderstruck. "I'd really like you to come and stay with us here at the Mansion." Lupin stared. "What does that have to do with the Ministry?" Sirius sighed. "The Aurors have been over this place with a fine-tooth comb -- they've taken Lucius' papers, and all the Dark Arts items he collected. But they haven't touched the library. There are thousands of books in the library here, many of them the only editions still in existence. It would take them months to sort and catalogue, and several of the Aurors have admitted that they've never seen half the languages represented here. So I thought of you. The Ministry is willing to pay you to assist in cataloguing Lucius' library--" "I'm not an Auror," Lupin protested. "We don't need an Auror," said Sirius. "We need someone who specializes in Dark Arts studies. An academic. Someone like you." "I've got a job here, Sirius. I can't just leave." "This job pays better," said Sirius. "And Dumbledore's happy to let you go. He said he's already found a replacement willing to take over your class." "Who?" said Lupin, looking curious. "Snape," said Sirius, grinning more than ever. This time Lupin grinned back. "I can just see Fleur trying to lure him out of the office..." "What?" "Nothing." "So you'll come?" "Of course I'll come." *** "This is an interesting turn of affairs," said Slytherin, in his harsh, buzzing voice. He stood very calmly at the foot of the stairs, looking tall and pale and deathly. He wore different robes than he had earlier; these were a much richer green, and fell in thick folds to the hem, which was edged in gold. I wonder if he dressed up to impress me? thought Hermione, feeling ill. She glanced quickly at Draco, expecting to see him looking horrified, shocked, or simply amazed. But he looked none of those things. There was a look on his face that was strangely like -recognition. As if he'd bumped into someone he knew, someone he hadn't expected to ever see again. "You," he said, staring at Slytherin. "I know you. But - you're dead. And you're short." Slytherin gave him a cold smile. "Oh yeah," said Draco, in the tone of one remembering something. "Platform boots, right?" "Draco," hissed Hermione warningly. "Don't." "So," said Draco, who seemed to be warming to his theme. "How'd that selling your soul to the Devil thing work out for you in the end? Because I can tell you, from where I've been standing, it didn't look like a terribly bright move." "You," said Slytherin, not moving, "you know who I am, then?" "You're my ancestor," said Draco. He reached behind him, and drew the sword out of its casing, holding it in front of him. "And I think this is yours." "It is ours," said Slytherin. "You have my blood in you, boy. And now you have my dreams and my memories. Soon you will become me." Draco shook his head. "I really don't see that happening," he said, still holding the sword in front of him. Despite her horror, Hermione was impressed. He actually held it like he knew how to use it. Then she recalled the fencing-room at Malfoy Mansion. Maybe he did know how to use it. Slytherin smiled again, even more coldly. "You're a child," he said. "You cannot recognize the workings of destiny. You think it is chance that brought that sword to you? Or brought you here? Or brought you to her?" he said, glancing at Hermione. "I had thought she would love me. But that she should love you - that is even better. History repeating itself, the way it was meant to be." "Okay, there's one thing I didn't factor into this," said Draco, staring at Slytherin. "You're a thundering lunatic." Slytherin continued to smile. "Hermione doesn't love me," said Draco. "Do you?" he said, swinging around and staring at her. Hermione didn't say anything. "Consider it a gift," said Slytherin, looking at Draco. "From me to you. Only one small example of what I can give you." "Hermione?" said Draco again, looking shocked. He stepped towards her, just as she turned towards him, and the hilt of the sword collided with her arm. She shrieked and jumped back, holding her wrist, where a red welt was rising. "Rowena," barked Slytherin, in what almost sounded like alarm. He began to mount the stairs, looking agitated. "Get back," hissed Hermione, glaring at him in revulsion. She stepped backward, seizing Draco's sleeve with her unwounded arm, almost pushing him behind her. As if she were trying to put herself between him and Slytherin. "Just get back." Slytherin paused, looking up at them both out of dark, empty eyes. Then he reached into his voluminous sleeve, and withdrew an object that glittered darkly in the half-light. He held it tightly for a moment, looking at Draco. Then he said, "Here, boy. Catch." And threw it, hard, directly at Draco's face. Automatically, Draco raised the hand that wasn't holding the sword, and caught the object out of the air. Then gasped, as he felt a sudden jerk behind his navel; the world suddenly peeled down the center like an orange, and his vision flooded with a blur of color. Portkey, he thought dizzily. He was aware of Hermione beside him, still clutching at his sleeve, and then the ground struck his feet, and he stumbled onto his knees, only just managing not to impale himself on the blade of the sword as he fell forward. He glanced around, saw green grass growing up between cracked stone, saw a familiar, tumbledown wall, saw the line of trees that marked the beginning of the forest. And over the wall, he saw the tower from which they had just come. Slytherin had flung them outside the walls. *** Hermione stared around, dazed. She could tell that they were now outside the walls of the tower - but why? She looked over at Draco, who had dropped the sword into the grass and was gazing around, looking furious. "Goddamn it!" he yelled suddenly. "I can't believe I fell for that! 'Here, catch!' That's the oldest trick in the book, right up there with 'Look out behind you!'" "That thing he threw at you," she said, dazed. "Was that a Portkey?" "Must have been," he said, staring down at the object that was clutched in his hand. He slowly opened his fingers and stared. It was a weathered piece of silver, in the shape of what looked like a bent, sideways X. A loop at the top showed where a chain could be threaded through it. "Looks like a piece of cheap jewelry." "I can't believe he just let us go," she said, suddenly. Draco looked up, and frowned at her. "Hermione, he's madder than ...well, I can't think of anything right now, but he'd madder than some very, very mad thing. He's completely, utterly bonkers. Probably from having been dead so long." "He is mad," she said quietly. "But he's quite determined, as well." Draco got up, brushing grass off his clothes, and reached out a hand to help her up as well. She took it. It was like an electric shock. She felt a jolt go through her as his hand met hers, felt the potion in her blood respond with a wave of heat and a sudden searing burst of longing. She got slowly to her feet, staring at him. She could sense his confusion, worry and irritation - in fact, she felt as if every inch of her body was sensitized to what he might be feeling. The shock that had overwhelmed her when she had first seen him was beginning to wear off, to be replaced by a terrible, heavy, aching sort of weight. And a small, cold voice in the back of her mind was telling her that that weight would be relieved if she just went over to him and - No. She yanked her hand away. "Don't touch me." He looked at her, bewildered and with a rising anger in his eyes. "What on earth is wrong with you, Hermione?" "What's wrong with me?" she echoed, with a mirthless sort of laugh. "I love you, that's what's wrong with me." Draco stared at her, looking as if he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. "You what?" "I love you." He shook his head. "I don't --" "I'm in love with you," she said. He went white, startlingly white -- he looked more as if she had hit him than told him that she loved him. She felt as guilty as if she had hit him. "No," he said. "You're in love with Harry." "That's true," she said, clenching her fingers into fists of anxiety. "That's true, but -- didn't you hear what Slytherin said, back there on the stairs?" "I thought we'd established that he was a few umbrellas short of a cocktail," said Draco. "And frankly, I'm starting to wonder a bit about you, too, so I think you'd better explain yourself. And soon." " Slytherin gave me a love potion," she said, expressionlessly. "He meant for me to fall in love with him. It makes you fall in love with the first person you see after you drink it. Only the first person I saw," she took a deep breath, "was you." He stared at her, looking utterly stunned. "A love potion," he repeated uncertainly. She nodded. "Yes." "And so now you love me? Because of a potion?" "Yes," she said, again. "But you didn't love me before," he said, and now there was a wistful tone to his voice that she had never heard before. "You didn't love me...before the potion?" Hermione shook her head very slowly. "Not like this." "Oh," he said blankly, and then, "How long is this meant to last for, Hermione?" "I think," she said, "that it's meant to be permanent." "Oh," he said again. He still looked stunned. She reached out uncertainly towards him, and lightly took hold of his arm. The dragon-hide leather felt as rough as sand beneath her fingertips. She looked up into his face, and her heart turned over. It was like looking up at Harry - the same feeling of longing so intense that it had a shape and a color of its own. She had never thought she would feel that way looking up into eyes that were any color but green, at a face that was any face but Harry's. "I'll figure out how to counteract it," she said desperately. "I know there's a way. But we can't tell Harry- -" Draco looked startled. "Hermione, you have to tell him," he said, and she pulled back. "What?" "Are you really expecting him not to notice?" said Draco in a tight, strained voice. "Hermione, he loves you. He notices everything you do. You think he's not going to notice this?" "Notice what?" said Hermione stubbornly. "There's nothing to notice. Nothing is going to happen, except that I'm just going to have to suffer this -- this horrible mistake -- until we get home and I can figure out how to counteract the spell." "Horrible mistake?" said Draco, with a very faint and unmirthful smile. "Ouch." "All right, maybe I shouldn't have said 'horrible.' Maybe just 'mistake.'" "Still not exactly fluffing up the old ego, but I'll let that pass. Hermione, I know you don't want to hurt him, but he'll understand that this is temporary and not your fault --" "He'll be angry with me," said Hermione. "But I don't mind that. I was thinking of you." "Of me?" "I don't want Harry to hate you. Because he needs you." "Harry doesn't need me." "Yes," she said. "He does." "Hermione--" Draco passed a hand over his eyes, and sighed. "God, you're stubborn." "He needs you," she repeated, her voice rising to a nearly hysterical pitch. "You know this will hurt him, and that it's you will make it worse-- everything's so fragile already, and with this --" "Harry's not that fragile," he said. "Well, neither am I," said Hermione. "And I can fight this. And I will." "You think you can fight it?" said Draco, and now he looked angry. "You think you can fight what you feel, every second of every day, and pretend everything is fine, and it'll be easy?" "It's not forever," she said. "It's just until I can reverse the spell." "What if it can't be reversed?" "Every spell can be reversed," she said. "Not Avada Kedavra," he said, and she shivered. "That's death," she said. "This is just a love spell." He reached out and put a hand under her chin, tilting it so that she was forced to look at him. He was almost exactly the same height as Harry -- she had to look up, but not too far up, to see his eyes. "What does it feel like?" he said. "What does what feel like?" she asked, although she knew what he meant. "The spell," he said. She heard her own voice as if it came from far away. "When I look at you, I want to die." He was still holding her face in his hands, and as he stared at her, she saw his eyes soften, silver turning to gray. "Don't look at me," he said. His voice was soft, too, a voice he never used with anyone but her. "Don't look at me, don't talk to me, don't even come near me. And I won't come near you. It's the only way." "All right," said Hermione miserably. He was right; she didn't see what else they could do. He let go of her, and she stepped back away from him. "Let's go," he said. *** As they rounded the side of the tower, Hermione saw Harry and Ron, standing in front of the wall, looking anxiously up at it as if they expected her or Draco to appear on top of it at any moment. Ron was saying something to Harry, and Harry was shaking his head, not vehemently, but she could tell even from this distance that he was disagreeing firmly - and she paused there for a moment, just wanting to look at them - her two best friends in the world, whom she had been terrified she would never see again. Even the sight of them arguing with each other seemed unutterably endearing. She glanced at Draco, who was looking at her with an unreadable expression. He caught her eye, then jerked his chin towards Ron and Harry, obviously indicating that she should notify them of her presence. She frowned at him, and turned back towards the two boys. "Ron!" she called, and then, louder, "Harry!" Ron turned first, and saw her, and his blue eyes widened. And then Harry turned, and when she saw his face, and sudden wild happiness that flashed across it when he saw her, her knees gave out and she sat down hard on the ground. She saw Harry break into a run, and then he had flung himself down beside her and was kneeling next to her in the grass. She saw him through unfocused eyes -- a Harry-shaped shadow, with a blur of untidy hair -- and then his arms were around her, and he was crushing her so tightly to him that she couldn't breathe. She threw her own arms around his shoulders, feeling him shaking, and realized -- with a mixture of wonder and horror -- that he was crying. Harry, who never cried, not even when he was eleven years old, not even in situations that would have made most children bawl like babies. "Harry," she breathed. "I thought you were dead," he said, into her hair. "I was sure of it." "No -- Harry, I'm fine -- I'm perfectly all right." He pulled away from her, just far enough to touch her face with his hand, running his finger over her cheekbone, down to her mouth. "You don't know what it was like --" "Shh," she said, pulled his head down, and kissed him fiercely. "I'm fine." In answer, he just held her tighter, running his hands in ragged circles over her back, and kissing her, with great enthusiasm if uneven aim, all over her face and neck and hands. She clutched him back, feeling a little of the poisonous fear that seemed to have seeped into her system along with the potion fade away. The familiarity of Harry's embrace was utterly comforting, because, she thought, how powerful could a love potion be when you were already in love with somebody else? And her love for Harry wasn't at all diminished; she knew that without even thinking about it. He was as much a part of her as he had ever been. She lifted her face up to be kissed, holding him tightly as she did so, and thought, I can beat this. This is going to be easy. *** "Oh, this is just revolting," said Ron, who was standing with Draco near the wall. They'd turned their backs so that they could no longer see Harry and Hermione, but they could still hear them, and neither of them was very happy about it. "Love is a beautiful thing, Weasley," said Draco, staring up at the sky. "Not when it's your two best friends," said Ron. "Yech, I can hear the smacking noises." "Just try to think about other things." "Oh, I've got lots to think about," said Ron, and now there was an edge to his voice. "Like you, and why you didn't come back for us like Harry asked you to." "No time," said Draco, shortly. "I don't believe that," said Ron. "I don't care," said Draco. "Couldn't be bothered to come back for us, could you, Malfoy?" said Ron. "Couldn't resist the opportunity to blow your own trumpet." "At least I've got a trumpet," said Draco. "Unlike some people." Ron looked irritable, but before he had the opportunity to say anything, there was a soft *pop * and Charlie Weasley Apparated into the clearing. "'Lo, Charlie," said Ron lugubriously. Draco was startled. "It hasn't been that long, has it?" "No," said Charlie, who was holding something in his hand -- a letter, Draco saw. It looked as if Charlie had already opened it and read it. "But this came for you, Ron." "Owl post?" said Ron, reaching for it curiously. "It's from Sirius Black," said Charlie, looking faintly exasperated. "He was looking for Harry. He'd no idea where you'd all gone off to, of course. I finally wrung some information out of Ginny and wrote him a long letter back, but I'd still rather Harry wrote him as well. Where is Harry, anyway -- Good Lord!" exclaimed Charlie, catching sight of Harry and Hermione over Ron's shoulder. "Is that --" "Hermione," said Ron flatly. Charlie was still staring in astonishment. "I knew you came here looking for her, but I didn't know that Harry and Hermione were..." He blinked. "Harry and Hermione?" "I take it you've let your subscription to Witch Weekly lapse," said Draco. "Or you'd already know about this." "How long has this been going on?" "Ages," said Ron, rolling his eyes. "About fifteen minutes," said Draco. "Not the er, kissing, I meant the relationship. You know what, never mind. I really don't need to know. Although I have to say," he said, a very faint smile twitching the corner of his mouth, "I don't think I ever kissed anyone like that when I was sixteen. I'm not sure I even knew you could kiss anyone like that when I was sixteen." "At least they're just kissing," said Ron. "I was starting to get worried." "We should really get back to the camp," said Draco. "Right," said Charlie. Nobody moved. "You go get them," said Ron, grinning at Charlie. "You're in loco parentis around here." "Can't be scarier than a lot of enraged dragons," pointed out Draco. "I dunno," said Charlie. "I'd rather deal with a lot of enraged dragons than have to pry two lust-crazed adolescents off each other." He looked at Ron. "They're your best friends, you go peel them apart." "Yeah, Weasley," said Draco. "What are you afraid of?" "Nothing," said Ron. "Well, spiders, but..." He trailed off. They all looked at each other. Then Charlie turned around so that he, as well as Ron and Draco, was facing away from the reunited couple. "We'll just wait a bit," he said. "We're going to be here a long time, aren't we?" said Draco, in a resigned voice. *** Harry, Hermione, Charlie, Ron and Draco sat around the small kitchen table in Charlie's tent. Charlie himself was utterly silent while the four of them told him everything that had happened. Harry and Hermione sat together at one end of the table, their hands interlaced over the arm of Hermione's chair. Ron sat opposite them, and Draco had pushed his chair back, away from the table, turned it around, and folded his arms over the back. He looked unconcerned, but Hermione had noticed that so far he hadn't looked at her once. He was living up to his end of the bargain, anyway, she thought. Even if she wasn't. Not quite. "Salazar Slytherin," said Charlie, shaking his head in wonder. He looked over at Draco. "Well, I suppose from now on you can say you defeated the most evil wizard in history." "I suppose I did," said Draco, looking rather cheerful. "If, that is, you mean defeated in the sense of 'having met'.'"